New York Scot won’t let forces of evil win
ONE of the organisers of New York’s Tartan Week has vowed not to let the terrorists win despite witnessing the horrors of the latest attack.
Siouxsie Walker, founder of the Whisky and Tartan company and one of the driving forces behind the prestigious New York Scots event, has an office in the World Trade Centre which overlooks the scene of the massacre.
She said last night: “I was walking to the train and I heard the sirens and had no idea what was unfolding.
“There are always sirens in New York.
“It looked like some guy hit someone and had road rage, which happens in America.
“My friends were texting to see if I was OK and I could see that everything was blocked off from the cycle path.
“I was just minutes away from it all and it was all so unpredictable.”
Siouxsie said she and her friends were determined not to let the incident affect their lives negatively.
She explained: “There was a Halloween parade with two million people just up the street a few hours later and it starts when the sun goes down in Greenwich Village.
“So many people go there – and I love that they didn’t cancel the parade. New York doesn’t shut down.
“I work on the 56th floor of One World Trade Centre and I worked for a firm who lost people in the attack there.
“It was a real eye-opener for me and I know people who are permanently crippled. I walk by the memorial pools every day.
“For the most part, we are not going to alter our lives because something like this happened. We are not going to let anyone win.”
He appears to have followed to a T, the Isis guide on how to stage an attack NYPD CHIEF
THE terrorist truck driver who killed eight people by mowing them down on a New York 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 the city’s deadliest terrorist attack since two planes destroyed the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001.
Saipov, 29, said he would have carried on killing if he had not crashed his truck.
John Miller, New York City police department’s anti-terrorism chief, said yesterday the former Uber private hire driver followed Isis attack guidelines.
Miller said: “He did this in the name of Isis. 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 Isis instructions on how to carry out an attack.”
Officials said there is no indication Saipov 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 Isis in his rented truck.
One note read: “IS (Islamic State) lives forever”. Knives were recovered at the scene. An Isis 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 Isis 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. Trump pinned the blame for the scheme on Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, who accused Trump of cutting anti-terror funding.
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 to Trump on the phone.
The officer who shot and arrested Saipov was named as Ryan Nash, 28. ● TWO boys aged 14 arrested in a swoop at Northallerton, north Yorkshire, were yesterday charged with conspiracy to murder.
They will appear at Leeds Magistrates’ Court today.