NEW YORK — The man who killed eight people on a Manhattan bike lane five years ago in an attempt to impress a terrorist group was happy and proud when he met with FBI agents earlier that day, a prosecutor told jury in a closing argument Tuesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Richman said Sayfullo Saipov was smiling when he asked to hang the Islamic State group’s flag in his Manhattan hospital room following the Oct. 31, 2017 attack he carried out with a speeding rental truck.
Saipov, 34, drove the truck onto a bike path along the Hudson River and West Side Freeway, which is popular with tourists and Manhattanites, and struck the cyclists.
Richman urged the jury to convict Saipov on all counts in a case that might result in the death penalty. If the jury returns a guilty verdict on all counts following deliberations begin on Wednesday, a penalty phase of the trial will begin a week later. Unless the jurors unanimously choose death, the sentence would be life in prison.
People who were injured or lost loved ones at the hands of the Uzbek man were among those who testified during the trial.
“He targeted his victims mercilessly,” Richman said. That night, the prosecutor added, “he smiled. He was proud. He was happy with what he had done that day. He was happy regarding the terrorist attack… He had done what he came to do”.
Richman said Saipov only stopped his motorized rampage when he struck a small school bus, injuring children. Otherwise, he said, Saipov planned to head for the Brooklyn Bridge and kill as many people as he might there. He was arrested following he pointed paintball guns and black pellets at a police officer, who shot him.
During the trial, defense lawyers have not denied that Saipov carried out the attack.
But they say he should be cleared of an extortion charge because prosecutors were wrong to say he carried out the attack so the Islamic State group would allow him to become a member.
Defense attorney David Patton said Saipov expected to be killed in the attack.
“He didn’t expect to be here before all of you and he didn’t expect to join any organization,” Patton said. And that, he added, means that Saipov is not guilty of extortion.
Patton said that to do something “as horrible” as what his client did, he already had to consider himself a member of the Islamic State group.
He said Saipov had the “expectation that he would be shot by police.”
Saipov, who has been jailed without bail since the attack, legally moved to the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010. He lived in Ohio and Florida before joining his family in Paterson, New Jersey.
