IS-inspired attack ‘felt good’
NEW YORK: The Uzbek immigrant behind the city’s worst attack in 16 years confessed to acting in the name of the Islamic State group and “felt good” about the killings, having planned an assault for a year, investigators said on Wednesday.
The shocking details emerged as federal prosecutors filed terrorism charges against
Sayfullo Saipov, who subsequently appeared in court in a wheelchair — he had been shot in the abdomen by police — 24 hours after mowing down pedestrians and cyclists, and colliding with a school bus.
The attack killed eight people, five of them childhood friends from Argentina celebrating 30 years since their high school graduation, a 31-year-old Belgian mother, and two American men, from New York and neighbouring New Jersey.
Prosecutors unveiled the charges, saying he had waived his rights and confessed to being inspired by Islamic State propaganda, after yelling “Allahu akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic) upon exiting a rented pickup truck in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday.
United States justice officials announced on Wednesday that they had found a second Uzbek man they were seeking in a related attack.
Less than an hour after the FBI released posters with a picture of Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, and appealed for information, William Sweeney, the assistant director of the FBI’s New York field office said he had been located. AFP