Truck killer’s sick boasting after op
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THE terrorist truck driver who killed eight people by mowing them down on a cycle path has bragged to police from his hospital bed.
Surgeons operated to save twisted Sayfullo Saipov’s life after he was shot in the stomach by a policeman.
Yet he remained joyful about carrying out New York’s deadliest terrorist attack since two planes destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Saipov, 29, said he would have carried on killing if he had not crashed his truck.
New York City police department’s anti-terrorism chief, John Miller, said yesterday the former Uber taxi driver followed Islamic State attack guidelines.
Mr Miller said: “He did this in the name of IS. He seems to have followed the regimen prescribed. It appears he had been planning this for a number of weeks. He appears to have followed, almost exactly to a T, the IS instructions on how to carry out an attack.”
Officials said there is no indication he was contacted by the terror group.
The suspect, quizzed at the city’s Bellevue Hospital, was “radicalised domestically” after arriving in the US 10 years ago from Uzbekistan. The FBI found 10 to 15 pieces of paper with Arabic praising IS in his rented truck. One note read: “IS lives forever”. Knives were recovered at the scene and an IS flag was inside the vehicle.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said: “The evidence shows – and the investigation is ongoing – that after he came to the US is when he started to become informed about IS and radical tactics. Evidence to date is this was an isolated incident he himself performed.”
Following the attack President Donald Trump called for America’s green card immigration lottery to be scrapped, blaming the Democrats for allowing Saipov into the US.
Mr Trump pinned the blame for the scheme on Senator Chuck Schumer, who accused the President of cutting anti-terror funding.
Mr Trump tweeted yesterday: “The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.” He added: “We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter).”
Those killed in Tuesday’s attack in Manhattan included five pals from the Argentinian town of Rosario celebrating 30 years since their school graduation.
They were Hernan Diego Mendozaespino, Alejandro Damian Pagrucco, Herman Ferruchi, Diego Enrique Angelini, all 47, and Ariel Erlis, 48. The others killed were Darren Drake, 32, from New Jersey, New York resident Nicholas Cleves, 23, and mum-of-two Anne Laure Decadt, 31, from Belgium.
Theresa May said the UK will stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the US in “defeating the evil of terrorism” and spoke with Mr Trump in a phone call.
The officer who shot and arrested Saipov was named as Ryan Nash, 28.
Two boys aged 14 arrested in a swoop at Northallerton, North Yorks, were yesterday charged with conspiracy to murder. They will appear at Leeds magistrates court today.