Suspect in NYC van attack that killed 8 wanted to hang ISIS flag in hospital room, court hears

A man who killed eight people on a New York City bike path in 2017 smiled as he proudly spoke of the carnage, asking to hang the flag of an Islamic militant group in his hospital room, a prosecutor said Monday in the first federal death penalty trial since U.S. President Joe Biden took office.

Prosecutors allege Sayfullo Saipov steered a rented pickup truck onto a concrete trail along the Hudson River and accelerated to 106 km/h, running over cyclists and pedestrians and leaving a trail of dead and injured on Oct. 31, 2017.

The rampage came to an end when the truck crashed into a school bus a few blocks from the World Trade Center, a collision that left one child with serious brain damage. Saipov was then shot by a police officer, who says the suspect emerged from the wreck and pointed black pellet and paintball guns that looked like deadly weapons at him.

After he was shot by the officer, Saipov was arrested at the scene.

Saipov, now 34, has pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.

Gruesome scene described

In recent years, attackers with sympathies with Islamist militants were shot and killed after launching deadly attacks on U.S. soil at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub, a Pensacola, Fla., naval base, a Chattanooga, Tenn., military recruitment centre, and at various locations in San Bernardino, Calif.

Saipov also expected to die that day as a martyr, defence lawyer David Patton said in his opening statement, in order to avenge the deaths of Muslims worldwide.

Saipov spoke out during a pretrial hearing in 2019, saying “thousands and thousands of Muslims are dying all over the world,” and questioned why he should be judged for eight deaths.

Meanwhile, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Li described the gruesome scene Saipov left behind, including the dead and serious permanent injuries to about a dozen others, and mangled bicycles strewn along a popular 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 said. The dead included a mother visiting from Belgium with her family, five friends from Argentina and two Americans.

Li said 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 asked to display an ISIS flag in his hospital room will be among witnesses, Li said.

“He was eager to speak with the FBI. He was proud of his attack,” the prosecutor said, noting that the agent will testify that Saipov smiled while recounting his destruction. “He told them that his goal was to kill as many people as possible.”

Saipov could face death penalty

In his opening statement Monday, Li said jurors will hear testimony about Saipov’s desire 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 before joining his family in Paterson, N.J.

The prosecutor said Saipov’s cellphones contained proof that he viewed and stored thousands of images of Islamic State propaganda, including calls to use cars and trucks as weapons in terrorism attacks in the U.S. Deadly vehicle attacks had occurred in Britain, France, Germany and Spain in the preceding 12 months.

Patton agreed in his opening statement that Saipov had immersed himself in terrorist audio and video materials and social media, saying Saipov was convinced his actions on Oct. 31, 2017, were his religious obligation.

“And as we sit here today, he still believes that,” Patton said.

“It wasn’t an accident. He did it intentionally,” he said at another point.

Det. Ryan Nash, then a New York police officer, testified on Monday he was responding to another call when he too chased Saipov on foot.

Nash’s gunfire echoed in the courtroom Monday as a video was shown to the jury that captured the moment when Saipov was wounded.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has allowed U.S. prosecutors to continue advocating for capital punishment in cases inherited from previous administrations, though Biden instituted a moratorium on executions for federal crimes after taking office.

Judge Vernon S. Broderick told jurors that a conviction of Saipov would lead to a separate punishment phase in which they would be asked to decide whether he should spend life in prison or be executed. Unless they unanimously choose death, the sentence would be life in prison.

Saipov’s lawyers have said the death penalty process was irrevocably tainted by ex-president Donald Trump when he tweeted in all capital letters a day after the attack that Saipov “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”