NEW YORK — Sayfullo Saipov dreamed of martyrdom and being greeted by 72 maidens in the afterlife — he’s getting a prison sentence instead.
Saipov was found guilty Thursday of all 28 counts in Manhattan Federal Court of massacring eight people on the Hudson River Park bike path in a Halloween horror nearly five years ago.
Jurors took less than a day to decide Saipov’s fate after hearing two weeks of testimony about the gruesome attack that also seriously injured 11 people.
Prosecutors said Saipov chose a 6,000-pound flatbed truck as his weapon, the busy bike path as his venue, and Halloween as the time to carry out the carnage to maximize his death toll.
He sought to realize his goal of joining the Islamic State terror group by killing Americans on their home turf, authorities said. Most victims were tourists. Five men from Argentina were killed, as was a Belgian woman cycling with her family and two young men from New York and New Jersey.
Jurors watched disturbing videos during the trial of Saipov plowing down the bike path in a truck he rented from a Home Depot in Passaic, New Jersey.
Armed with two fake pistols, a bag of knives, and a note, which when translated read, “There is no God but Allah, Muhammad,” Saipov headed south on the West Side Highway, swung a right on Houston Street, and carved a mile-long path of terror along the protected bike lane.
After slamming into poles on the roadway, he went airborne and crashed into a school bus, injuring a woman and child and ending his trail of death. Saipov jumped out of the vehicle and faced a barrage of bullets from NYPD Officer Ryan Nash, who came upon the chaotic scene.
Saipov’s lawyers didn’t dispute their clients’ murderous actions and focused their defense on his motives. David Patton said Saipov didn’t plan to live to join the Islamic State group but planned to die a martyr — an idea he got from reading conspiracy theories online while working as a long-haul truck driver after emigrating to the U.S. from Uzbekistan.
After undergoing surgery for his gunshot wounds, a hospitalized Saipov told federal agents that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the world’s most wanted terrorist, told him to do it, jurors heard during the trial.
But Patton said it wasn’t credible to suggest al-Baghdadi reached out to “an Uber driver in Paterson, New Jersey.” He said there was no two-way communication, even if Saipov believed there was.
“This was coming from the material that was just swimming on the internet out there,” Patton said in his closing argument.
“If you have bought into this martyrdom notion, this is key, that you only get paradise and safety from doomsday and bringing your family with you and the 72 maidens and all of that only comes if the intention is pure, and it is not to join an organization.”
Saipov’s federal case will proceed to the death penalty phase next month, when the same jury that convicted him will decide whether the government should execute him. The capital punishment case is the first tried under President Joe Biden’s administration.
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