Attack of the Islamic State group in New York in 2017: the terrorist faces the death penalty

Sayfullo Saipov, guilty of the deaths of eight people on October 31, 2017 in New York.

St.Charles Country Dept.

of Corrections/AFP/Archivos

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1 min

On October 31, 2017, Sayfullo Saipov ran into passers-by on a city bike path, killing eight people in his path.

He has already been found guilty, on January 26, of aggravated murder and “support for a terrorist group”.

Joe Biden promised to abolish capital punishment.

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With our correspondent in Houston,

Sayfullo Saipov had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group and never expressed remorse after the murder of five Argentinians, two Americans and a Belgian.

This Monday during a second federal trial, the jurors must decide on his sentence: life imprisonment or the death penalty.

After the fact, then-President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice called for the death penalty.

Today the administration has changed.

Yet Justice Minister Merrick Garland did not oppose the request for the death penalty against Saipov.

Surprising when you know that Joe Biden had defended during his presidential campaign, the abolition of capital punishment at the federal level. 

According to some observers, it is linked to the terrorist characterization of the case. a terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 who had been sentenced to life in prison.

The Supreme Court changed his sentence to a death sentence last March.

However, Djokhar Tsarnaev, like Sayfullo Saipov, if sentenced to death, cannot be executed under a moratorium on federal executions reinstated in 2021 by the Biden administration. 

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