Sayfullo Saipov, 35, was convicted of federal crimes in January.
Prosecutors want to give Eddie Lee Mays some company.
Mays was the last man executed in New York State on Aug. 15, 1963, when the low-rent killer died in the electric chair at Sing Sing.
You are reading: Federal prosecutors want death penalty for New York bike path killer
Now, federal prosecutors in the Empire State want to give the convicted terrorist who murdered eight people when he drove down a Big Apple bike path in 2017 the same send-off.
Sayfullo Saipov, 35, was convicted of federal crimes in January.
On Oct. 30, 2017, Saipov drove across the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey in a Home Depot rental van. He later drove onto a West Side bike path and mowed down almost a dozen pedestrians and cyclists.
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When he emerged from the vehicle, the ISIS fanboy screamed “God is great” in Arabic while waving paintball guns. A New York cop ended the tirade with a bullet.
If the jury passes on the death penalty, Saipov will automatically be sentenced to life without parole.
One roadblock to giving Saipov the big adios is the Biden administration’s moratorium on federal executions.
The terrorist’s legal eagles argued that Saipov should be let off the hook because the feds didn’t seek the death penalty for Patrick Crusius. Crusius slaughtered 23 people in a shooting rampage in El Paso, Texas. Ergo, Saipov is being discriminated against because of his ethnic background.
Lawyer David Patton said: “Given the recent decision to accept Patrick Crusius’s guilty plea to life imprisonment despite his unrepentant and premeditated hate killing of 23 Latinos at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas — Crusius being a white, U.S.-born citizen — the court should have significant concern that a driving force behind the death notice, in this case, is Mr. Saipov’s religion and national origin, in violation of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.”
Saipov is an Uzbek Muslim who was in the U.S. after winning a diversity immigration lottery.
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His lawyers also took exception to former U.S. President Donald Trump tweeting the day following the attack that Saipov “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”
Prosecutors said Saipov’s bloodlust was fuelled by his adoration of Islamic State. He was convicted of 28 charges, including murder and supporting a foreign terrorist organization.
This week, jurors will decide whether he should live or die.
He did not testify during the trial.
Prosecutors had argued that Saipov considered the attack as something of a tryout for the Islamic State of which he wanted to be a member.
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