Suspect in NYC van attack that killed 8 wanted to hang ISIS flag in hospital room, court hears | 24CA News
A person who killed eight individuals on a New York City bike path in 2017 smiled as he proudly spoke of the carnage, asking to hold the flag of an Islamic militant group in his hospital room, a prosecutor mentioned Monday within the first federal demise penalty trial since U.S. President Joe Biden took workplace.
Prosecutors allege Sayfullo Saipov steered a rented pickup truck onto a concrete path alongside the Hudson River and accelerated to 106 km/h, working over cyclists and pedestrians and leaving a path of useless and injured on Oct. 31, 2017.
The rampage got here to an finish when the truck crashed into a faculty bus a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center, a collision that left one little one with severe mind harm. Saipov was then shot by a police officer, who says the suspect emerged from the wreck and pointed black pellet and paintball weapons that regarded like lethal weapons at him.
After he was shot by the officer, Saipov was arrested on the scene.
Saipov, now 34, has pleaded not responsible to terrorism fees.
Gruesome scene described
In latest years, attackers with sympathies with Islamist militants had been shot and killed after launching lethal assaults on U.S. soil at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub, a Pensacola, Fla., naval base, a Chattanooga, Tenn., navy recruitment centre, and at numerous places in San Bernardino, Calif.
Saipov additionally anticipated to die that day as a martyr, defence lawyer David Patton mentioned in his opening assertion, to be able to avenge the deaths of Muslims worldwide.
Saipov spoke out throughout a pretrial listening to in 2019, saying “thousands and thousands of Muslims are dying all over the world,” and questioned why he ought to be judged for eight deaths.
Meanwhile, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Li described the ugly scene Saipov left behind, together with the useless and severe everlasting accidents to a few dozen others, and mangled bicycles strewn alongside a preferred path.
“The riders, human beings, lay unconscious or dead. Survivors staggered around, wounded and dazed, searching for their family and friends. Screams filled the air,” Li mentioned. The useless included a mom visiting from Belgium along with her household, 5 pals from Argentina and two Americans.
Li mentioned Saipov had hoped to kill others by driving onto the Brooklyn Bridge, “where he could mow down even more people.”
An FBI agent who Saipov requested to show an ISIS flag in his hospital room shall be amongst witnesses, Li mentioned.
“He was eager to speak with the FBI. He was proud of his attack,” the prosecutor mentioned, noting that the agent will testify that Saipov smiled whereas recounting his destruction. “He told them that his goal was to kill as many people as possible.”
Saipov might face demise penalty
In his opening assertion Monday, Li mentioned jurors will hear testimony about Saipov’s need to win the favour of the Islamic State group after he legally moved to the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010. He lived in Ohio and Florida earlier than becoming a member of his household in Paterson, N.J.
The prosecutor mentioned Saipov’s cellphones contained proof that he seen and saved hundreds of photographs of Islamic State propaganda, together with calls to make use of automobiles and vans as weapons in terrorism assaults within the U.S. Deadly car assaults had occurred in Britain, France, Germany and Spain within the previous 12 months.
Patton agreed in his opening assertion that Saipov had immersed himself in terrorist audio and video supplies and social media, saying Saipov was satisfied his actions on Oct. 31, 2017, had been his non secular obligation.
“And as we sit here today, he still believes that,” Patton mentioned.
“It wasn’t an accident. He did it intentionally,” he mentioned at one other level.
Det. Ryan Nash, then a New York police officer, testified on Monday he was responding to a different name when he too chased Saipov on foot.
Nash’s gunfire echoed within the courtroom Monday as a video was proven to the jury that captured the second when Saipov was wounded.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has allowed U.S. prosecutors to proceed advocating for capital punishment in instances inherited from earlier administrations, although Biden instituted a moratorium on executions for federal crimes after taking workplace.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick instructed jurors {that a} conviction of Saipov would result in a separate punishment section during which they’d be requested to resolve whether or not he ought to spend life in jail or be executed. Unless they unanimously select demise, the sentence could be life in jail.
Saipov’s attorneys have mentioned the demise penalty course of was irrevocably tainted by ex-president Donald Trump when he tweeted in all capital letters a day after the assault that Saipov “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”
