Caught on tape
Bike path susp was on FBI radar
Attorneys for the alleged ISIS sympathizer charged with a 2017 truck attack on the Hudson River bike path wrote Friday he’d been caught on a wiretap prior to the incident that left eight people dead.
Sayfullo Saipov, 30, was drugged up from surgery on a bullet wound to his groin when FBI agents started grilling him less than 24 hours after the attack on Halloween. Their questions indicated this wasn’t the first time he’d been on their radar, the accused terrorist’s attorney David Patton wrote in court papers made public Friday.
“It is clear (FBI agents) interrogated Mr. Saipov about matters and contacts that overlap with surreptitious FBI surveillance of Mr. Saipov’s communications,” Patton wrote in new filings in Manhattan Federal Court.
“We are still waiting for more information from the government about the nature and basis of the wiretaps.”
Several sentences regarding the surveillance were redacted, but Patton indicated he’d just learned of it last month.
A former law enforcement source familiar with the Saipov investigation said that the ISIS sympathizer had been caught on a wiretap prior to the truck attack speaking with a fellow Uzbek.
That man was the subject of a separate investigation. Saipov was not the target of the wiretap, the source said.
The revelation was included in new legal papers arguing that Saipov’s statements to the FBI shortly after the incident should be excluded from trial.
“Mr. Saipov received doses of powerful opioid painkillers and benzodiazepine sedatives right up until his breathing tube was removed at 11:20 p.m. Twenty-eight minutes later, two FBI agents began an interrogation that lasted all night long,” Patton wrote.
Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.
His attorneys also argued in that the federal death penalty is too flawed to enforce.
Saipov’s trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 7, 2019.