Global Courant 2023-05-17 17:33:30
A Manhattan jury has already decided that Sayfullo Saipov will be sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for carrying out a 2017 terrorist attack on a West Side bike path that killed eight people, including six foreign tourists.
But before Judge Vernon S. Broderick imposes that sentence, about two dozen victims and family members, most of them traveling to New York from abroad, are expected to address the court in a solemn and grim ritual of the American justice system: victims address judges .
Relatives of other victims have submitted written statements that federal prosecutors say they will ask to read, a court filing shows.
Saipov, 35, an Uzbek immigrant, could have faced the death penalty after being convicted on 26 January of the 28 charges he faced, including nine charges carrying the death penalty. But the jurors told Judge Broderick on March 13, during their second full day of deliberations, that they could not agree on whether to impose the death penalty, which would require a unanimous vote from all 12 jurors.
As a result, Mr. Saipov was automatically sentenced to life in prison.
The case was the first federal death penalty trial in the administration of President Biden, who had campaigned against the death penalty. In seeking Mr. Saipov’s execution, prosecutors had cited what they described as his premeditation and planning in the attack, the danger he would pose in prison, his lack of remorse and his professed desire to Islamic State or ISIS. .
Among the eight killed in the attack were five cyclists from Argentina and a Belgian woman, Ann-Laure Decadt. The other victims were a 23-year-old software engineer from Manhattan and a 32-year-old financial worker from New Jersey.
Mr. Saipov carried out the attack on a sultry Halloween day when the bike path was packed with tourists and others. He mowed them down in a rented 6,000-pound Home Depot truck, crushing some of the victims and sending others flying into the air.
He plowed into a group of 10 Argentine friends who were riding bikes in a two-by-two motorcade, “pushing and killing every rider on the left side of the motorcade,” Alexander Li, a federal prosecutor, said at the trial .
On Tuesday, the government submitted a letter to the court from Ana Evans, the widow of Hernan Mendoza, one of the Argentine cyclists. Ms Evans will not be able to attend the hearing.
“Nothing and no one can turn back time,” Ms Evans wrote, according to an English translation. “Nothing is going to bring our loved ones back home the way it should have been because the one person who could have prevented it by choosing not to is sitting here proudly watching the carnage he committed.”
Mr. Saipov will also have the opportunity, if he wishes, to address the court before Judge Broderick imposes the sentence. But that led to a request from prosecutors to the judge last week.
Prosecutors noted that Mr. While in prison, Saipov was subject to special restrictions that limited his ability to communicate with others.
Prosecutors said they planned to have an Uzbek linguist in the courtroom to verify any statement made by Mr. Saipov. They said that if Mr Saipov said anything that violates the restrictions – “for example, inciting or encouraging violence by ISIS or others,” the prosecutors wrote – the linguist would inform the prosecutors, who would immediately object and the judge would ask for instructions from the courtroom interpreters to pause their public translation of the statement.
Judge Broderick said he would.
