The perpetrator of the attack that killed eight people, including one Belgian woman, in New York in October 2017 has been sentenced to back-to-back life sentences.
Saipov drove a rented pickup truck into pedestrians and cyclists on a bike path in lower Manhattan on 31 October 2017. The attack left eight people dead and a dozen, including a 14-year-old child, seriously injured, making it the deadliest attack in New York since 11 September 2001. He allegedly carried out the attack in the name of the extremist movement Islamic State (IS).
The 35-year-old Uzbek Sayfullo Saipov had already been found guilty in January, but after days of deliberations, the 12-member jury failed to reach unanimity on the death penalty.
As a result, Saipov was automatically given a life sentence in March with no possibility of parole. The exact sentence was set on Wednesday by a judge in New York: eight consecutive life sentences, one for every death caused by the attack, two concurrent life sentences, and a consecutive sentence of 260 years in prison for carrying out a terrorist attack.
“Today’s sentence means that Sayfullo Saipov will spend the rest of his life in federal prison for brutally murdering eight innocent victims during his carefully calculated ISIS terrorist attack,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
Saipov himself appeared in court for almost an hour to defend his actions, speaking in Uzbek about the history of Islam to justify his crimes, without any sign of remorse.
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Among the fatalities was 31-year-old Ann-Laure Decadt from the West Flanders town of Staden. The woman was in New York on a city trip with her mother and two sisters. Another three Belgians, a family with a father, mother and son, were injured.
Wednesday was a special day for the surviving victims and their families because they had the chance to speak in court themselves to the jury, and to Saipov himself. Some 24 people, most of whom had come from far outside New York, did so, including the sister of the Belgian victim, who cried out: “The only act of the devil here is the act you have done!”
