(New York) Sayfullo Saipov, a radicalized Uzbek who killed eight cyclists and pedestrians in a large vehicle in New York in 2017 on behalf of the Islamic State group, was found guilty Thursday by a federal jury in Manhattan, where he faces the death penalty.
The 34-year-old, who had been on trial since January 9, was found guilty of 28 counts, including eight of ‘murder to join the Islamic State’, ‘which carry the death penalty or life in prison,” the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office said.
On Halloween in 2017, Sayfullo Saipov launched his car on a drive along the Hudson River in lower Manhattan, claiming many casualties and killing eight people, including five Argentines and one Belgian.
The attack resulted in the deadliest toll in New York after the attacks of September 11, 2001. It occurred more than a year after that of Nice, in the south of France, when a 31-year-old Tunisian drove a truck into the crowd watching the July 14 fireworks display, killing 86 people and injuring more than 400.
Sayfullo Saipov’s trial is the first at the federal level in Joe Biden’s term where the death penalty is at stake.
Unanimity required
Elected in November 2020, the Democratic president had promised during his campaign to work to abolish the death penalty at the federal level and his Department of Justice had decreed a moratorium on federal executions shortly after the election, not preventing those decided by the states.
But in a Sept. 16, 2022 court document in Sayfullo Saipov’s case file, Manhattan federal prosecutor Damian Williams acknowledged the Justice Department’s decision “to continue to seek the death penalty” in the case, a position decided under the mandate of Donald Trump (2017-2021).
According to the Manhattan prosecution, the debates to define the sentence will begin on February 6 before the same jury of 12 people, who will have to be unanimous if they want to condemn Mr. Saipov to the death penalty.
The death penalty has been abolished in the state of New York, but it may apply in the case of a federal trial. Nevertheless, the last execution dates back several decades in this state.
Sayfullo Saipov did not speak about the facts during the trial, which gave rise to the painful story of the relatives of the dead or injured victims.
Alexander Li, one of the prosecutors, recalled that the accused had chosen New York because “he knew there would be people in the streets”, describing Mr. Saipov, who arrived in the United States in 2010, as preparing since 2016 “to become an ISIS soldier”.
But according to David Patton, one of his lawyers, Mr Saipov was not seeking to join the IS group after his crimes and expected to die. He presented this married man and father of three children as having become radicalized on the internet.