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U.S. to seek death penalty for bike-path terrorist
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.
Prosecutors announced Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to seek 30-year-old Sayfullo Saipov’s execution in a Manhattan Federal Court document labeled “Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty.”
Saipov’s court-appointed lawyers with the Federal Defenders of New York lamented the news.
“We are obviously disappointed by the Attorney General’s decision. 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 showdown over President Trump’s influence on Sessions’ decision to seek capital punishment.
Saipov’s attorney, Jennifer Brown, wrote earlier this month Sessions is unable to fulfill his duty “to fairly and independently decide whether to seek the death penalty” due to 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 impact of Trump’s relentless public insults of Sessions.
Saipov’s trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 7, 2019.