Government to seek death penalty for Hudson River bike path attack suspect

NEW YORK — The ISIS sympathizer accused of killing eight people in a truck attack on the Hudson River bike path deserves the death penalty, the government said Friday.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will seek 30-year-old Sayfullo Saipov’s execution as presented in a Manhattan Federal Court document.

Saipov’s court-appointed lawyers lamented the news.

“We think the decision to seek the death penalty rather than accepting a guilty plea to life in prison with no possibility of release will only prolong the trauma of these events for everyone involved,” Saipov attorney David Patton said.

The move sets up a legal showdown over President Donald Trump’s influence on Sessions’ decision to seek capital punishment.

Saipov’s attorney, Jennifer Brown, wrote this month that Sessions is unable to fulfill his duty “to fairly and independently decide whether to seek the death penalty” because of Trump’s tweets regarding the Oct. 31, 2017 attack.

Trump tweeted on Nov. 1: “NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”

Brown also cited Trump’s well-documented loathing of Sessions as irreparably tainting any decision the attorney general makes with political influence.

But in a separate legal memo filed Friday, prosecutors said defense lawyers’ arguments rely on a series of “speculative leaps” about the effect of Trump’s tweets.

“The Attorney General might be concerned about losing his job (although there is no evidence he is); the Attorney General might be influenced by the President’s public statements about Saipov (although there is no evidence he is); and, therefore, the Attorney General might give the President’s statements unconstitutional weight in deciding whether to seek the death penalty (although there is no evidence he will),” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Beaty wrote. “Saipov’s argument strains credulity.”