Tue | Mar 21, 2023

NYC bike path killer convicted, could face the death penalty

Published:Thursday | January 26, 2023 | 6:14 PM
This undated file photo provided by the St. Charles County Department of Corrections in St Charles, Missouri, shows Sayfullo Saipov. Saipov, an Islamic extremist who killed eight in a New York bike path attack was convicted of federal crimes on Thursday, January 26, 2023, and could face the death penalty. (St. Charles County, Missouri, Department of Corrections/KMOV via AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — An Islamic extremist who killed eight people with a speeding truck in a 2017 rampage on a popular New York City bike path was convicted Thursday of federal crimes and could face the death penalty.

Sayfullo Saipov bowed his head as he heard the verdict in a Manhattan courtroom just a few blocks from where the attack ended. Prosecutors said the Halloween rampage was inspired by his reverence for the Islamic State militant group.

The dozen jurors deliberated for about seven hours over two days before convicting Saipov, 34, of 28 counts of crimes that include murder in aid of racketeering and supporting a foreign terrorist organisation.

Jurors will return to court no earlier than February 6 to hear more evidence to help them decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

A death sentence for Saipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, would be an extreme rarity in New York.

The state no longer has capital punishment and the last state execution was in 1963.

A federal jury in New York has not rendered a death sentence that withstood legal appeals in decades, with the last execution in 1954.

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