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Tag: sayfullo habibullaevic saipov

  • NYC bike path terrorist set to be sentenced to life in prison after avoiding death penalty verdict at trial | CNN

    NYC bike path terrorist set to be sentenced to life in prison after avoiding death penalty verdict at trial | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A terrorist convicted of striking and killing eight people with a rented truck on a New York City bike path in an attack for ISIS is scheduled to be sentenced to serve life in prison Wednesday.

    Sayfullo Saipov effectively learned his sentence in March, when the jury in the penalty phase of his trial in Manhattan federal court told a judge it was unable to reach an undivided decision favoring the death penalty on any of the nine capital counts against him.

    The capital counts each carry a mandatory life imprisonment sentence by law after the jury didn’t unanimously vote for the death penalty.

    Saipov’s case was the first death penalty case under the Biden administration.

    About 25 surviving victims and family members of those killed in the attack are expected to give victim impact statements at the sentencing hearing Wednesday morning, according to court filings.

    Of the eight people killed in the attack, five were from Argentina, two were Americans, and one was from Belgium. The majority of those participating in the Manhattan federal court hearing are traveling from Argentina and Belgium, the prosecutors said in a memo.

    The convicted terrorist will have an opportunity to address the court before he is sentenced, but it is unclear if he will do so.

    On Halloween in 2017, Saipov drove a rented U-Haul truck into cyclists and pedestrians on Manhattan’s West Side bike path, then crashed the vehicle into a school bus, authorities said.

    After leaving the truck while brandishing a pellet gun and paintball gun, he was shot by a New York City Police Department officer and taken into custody, officials said.

    The jury convicted Saipov in January of all 28 counts against him for the fatal attack.

    Those counts included murder in aid of racketeering activity, assault with a dangerous weapon and attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, provision of material support to ISIS, and violence and destruction of a motor vehicle.

    Saipov is expected to serve his life sentence at the Federal Bureau of Prisons ADX facility in Florence, Colorado, in solitary confinement at least 22 hours a day, his attorneys said during trial.

    Federal prosecutors who say Saipov deserves no leniency want District Judge Vernon Broderick to sentence Saipov to the fullest extent of the sentencing guidelines for his 28-count conviction; eight consecutive life sentences, a consecutive term of 260 years’ imprisonment and two concurrent life sentences.

    “Because Saipov deliberately committed the most abhorrent crime imaginable for which he has expressed no remorse, he deserves no leniency. Only the maximum punishment on each count of conviction will reflect the unimaginable harm inflicted and send the appropriate message that terrorist attacks on innocent civilians will be punished as harshly as the law allows,” prosecutors said in a pre-sentencing court filing.

    The harshest sentence, prosecutors wrote, would be “an exercise of such discretion to hold the defendant fully accountable for his crimes, and to send the appropriate message to the defendant, the public, and any others who might contemplate an attack on U.S. soil.”

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  • Closing arguments conclude in trial of accused NYC bike path terror suspect | CNN

    Closing arguments conclude in trial of accused NYC bike path terror suspect | CNN

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Closing arguments concluded Tuesday in the trial of Sayfullo Saipov, the man prosecutors say was radicalized by ISIS propaganda before he allegedly drove a rented truck down a bike path in New York, killing eight pedestrians in 2017.

    The judge is expected to charge the jury with the case Wednesday morning. He indicated the reading of the jury instructions will take several hours before deliberations begin.

    Defense attorney David Patton acknowledged in his closing argument that the defense does not dispute facts of the attack Saipov is accused of committing on Halloween in 2017.

    “It is no defense ‘I was convinced by others to do it,’ nobody forced him to do this and he’s guilty of murder and assault among many other crimes,” Patton told the jury.

    Six foreign tourists and two Americans were killed in the attack, the deadliest terrorist attack New York had seen since 9/11.

    The defense attorney disputed, however, prosecutors’ claim that Saipov was motivated to commit the attack to gain entry to ISIS.

    He argued that was not Saipov’s goal, and that the attack was spurred by religious fervor to please his God and “ascend to paradise” in his religion.

    Patton also noted ISIS does not call its members “soldiers of the Caliphate” as Saipov has referred to himself, according to trial evidence, but rather identifies its members by another term.

    The defense attorney said Saipov’s claim that an ISIS leader told him to commit the attack likely comes from a propaganda video recovered on his phone. Buying into ISIS propaganda does not suggest Saipov had any direct contact or coordination with ISIS members ahead of the attack, Patton said.

    In this courtroom sketch, Saipov listens during closing statements Tuesday.

    The people communicating with Saipov in “The House of the Caliphate” messaging group could have been anywhere, according to the defense attorney, and were not necessarily ISIS members in Syria or other territories occupied by the terrorist organization.

    Saipov faces eight capital counts of murder in aid of racketeering activity that could result in the death penalty if he’s convicted. The jury must determine in part whether the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that gaining entrance to ISIS was a substantial motivating factor for Saipov’s attack.

    “I just hope you will see why it is so important for you to get that right,” Patton told the jury in closing.

    Prosecutors told the jury in the government’s rebuttal Tuesday evening that Saipov must be convicted on all counts as they stand.

    “People who ISIS relies upon to conquer territory and kill non-believers, those are its soldiers. Of course they are part of ISIS. That is common sense,” prosecutor Amanda Leigh Houle said. “An organization engaged in a worldwide war needs its soldiers and its soldiers are part of the group.”

    The trial is the first federal death penalty case heard under President Joe Biden, who previously pledged to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level.

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