NEW BARRIERS BLOCK BIKERS

Sis begs: Spare ‘brainwashed’ brother

THE SISTER of truck-driving terrorist Sayfullo Saipov says her brother was “brainwashed” and should be spared death.

Umida Saipova said her brother — who was a driver for Uber and Lyft in New Jersey — had a normal phone conversation with their mother the day before the attack. He told her that he was eating her favorite pastry while driving to the airport to pick up a client.

“He was in a good mood. It was a usual, good conversation,” Saipova told Radio Free Europe from her home in Uzbekistan.

“We don’t know who has brainwashed him.”

Saipova admitted the family grew concerned when they noticed that Sayfullo Saipov, 29, had started growing his beard in the style of some Islamic extremists after his 2013 marriage.

Saipov told them he grew out his facial hair to appear older and to scare off potential muggers.

“When we first saw him on Skype with a beard, we got scared, honestly. We were terrified,” Saipova said. “I cried and called him and asked him why.”

“I don’t know, honestly, how long it will take for his head to get rid of that poison,” she added. “But I’m sure he will come to his senses, God willing.”

The Uzbek national fell under the sway of ISIS before steering a rented Home Depot truck onto a bike path along the Hudson River on Halloween. He mowed down bicyclists and pedestrians, killing eight people and injuring 13 others, authorities said.

He sped along the path for 14 blocks, crushing bodies under his vehicle, before crashing into a school bus near Chambers St.

Saipov escaped from his crippled truck yelling “Allahu akbar!” An NYPD cop shot him in the abdomen shortly after.

The suspect’s sister said their mother, Muqaddas Saipova, 50, saw no signs of radicalization when she visited him in the U.S. earlier this year.

“My mother said she would have brought him back to Uzbekistan had she noticed anything,” Umida Saipova said.

ISIS on Thursday took responsibility for the attack, calling Saipov a “soldier of the caliphate.”

His sister said their shattered family is now clinging to the hope that Saipov’s life will be spared — at least for a while.

“We don’t think he should be given the death penalty immediately,” she said. “We are hoping for a fair trial. We are ready to go there, if it’s possible, to talk to him.”

Prosecutors say Saipov was so joyous over the attack that he wanted to hang an ISIS flag in his hospital room.

The married father of three young kids had planned the assault for a year — apparently with the help of an ISIS online article that laid out detailed instructions on how to weaponize a truck.

Saipov told FBI agents he did a practice run with the truck and chose Halloween because more people would be out on the street, according to a criminal complaint.

President Trump initially suggested Saipov should be declared an enemy combatant and shipped off to Guantanamo CONCRETE BARRIERS installed on the Hudson River bike path in the aftermath of Tuesday’s deadly terror attack were cutting off the flow of cyclists and runners, users complained. In response, state Department of Transportation told a contractor to straighten out 20-foot jersey barriers plunked diagonally onto the path. State transportation officials recognized that some of the temporary barriers were placed diagonally on the path to the point where cyclists and joggers had to squeeze by them in a single file. Other intersections had jersey barriers that ran parallel to the path, making it easier to pass. Bay. But he later reversed course and called on the justice system to quickly put him to death.

Irked by Trump’s remarks, the suspect’s sister urged U.S. authorities to “give him a bit more time.”

“Please pass my message to Trump, if possible,” she added.