There hasn’t been much coverage in the news about this trial. I’m guessing Islamic terrorists have fallen out of favor as media villains.

In 2010, an Uzbek immigrant named Sayfullo Saipov was allowed into the United States on a diversity visa. He moved around several states before settling with his wife and kids in New Jersey and driving for Uber.

…Saipov came to the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010 and was living in New Jersey before the attack. He lived with his wife and three children and drove for Uber, according to officials.

He came to the US on a diversity immigrant visa, which allows people from countries with low recent immigration to apply for a visa and green card, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He later became a legal permanent resident, an NYPD official said.

Saipov was from a well-to-do family and his education reflected that.

…He finished a professional college in 2005 and studied at the Tashkent Financial Institute from 2005 to 2009; after graduating, he worked as an accountant at the Sayokhat Hotel in Tashkent, the statement said.

“He was brought up in a prosperous family,” the statement said. “His parents practiced traditional Islam, and were never noticed in connection with any extremist movements.”

Mr. Saipov had no criminal record in Uzbekistan before departing for the U.S., according to the statement. After moving to the U.S., he didn’t return to Uzbekistan to visit his parents, who still live in Tashkent.

His mild-mannered persona began to change, and acquaintances would later remember him as “pugnacious” and quick to start fights. Saipov was also becoming increasingly more unsocial.

…Azam Haque, who has volunteered at the center, said he frequently saw Mr. Saipov at the center’s mosque in the years he lived in Ohio. He said he wasn’t very social, and would “come in, pray and dash off after that.”

Some in the area’s small but growing Uzbek community, though, remember him as someone who was hotheaded.

An associate of Mr. Saipov’s, who also migrated from Uzbekistan and who owns a trucking company, described Mr. Saipov as pugnacious, picking fights with others including at their community mosque.

…Mike Kawská, 25, a food delivery man from Clifton, N.J., said he saw Mr. Saipov eating at Dunkin’ Donuts and talking to himself, distraught, in Arabic, saying

“‘I hate America, I’m fed up with America.’”

The personality shift probably had to do with the instructional videos he’d taken to watching. The good student that he was, Saipov took every word to heart.

On Halloween Day 2017, after practicing for weeks, he drove into New York City with a rented Home Depot truck and did this.

He was waving a pistol when he climbed out of the ruined truck and you can guess what he was shouting. His motivation was crystal clear.

…During Saipov’s trial, prosecutors said that on Oct. 31, 2017, the defendant drove a rented truck from New Jersey into Manhattan with the intention of causing as much destruction as possible. In lower Manhattan, he steered the truck into a bike path and pedestrian walkway, striking numerous individuals over several blocks before colliding with a school bus. He was inspired by Islamic State to carry out the attack, prosecutors say.

After carrying out the attack, he said “Allahu akbar,” which in Arabic translates to “God is Great.” Prosecutors said that before the attack, he watched ISIS videos on his phone.

The trial started on the 9th of this month, with Saipov’s lawyers arguing that capital charges were excessive…

…Before the trial, Saipov’s lawyers argued that capital punishment violated his constitutional rights.

…and that he was essentially a confused but austere religious scholar. That’s a pretty novel approach with 8 innocent, horribly mangled bodies in the ground.

Sayfullo Saipov, the man accused of using a rented truck to fatally strike eight people on a New York City bike path in 2017, became radicalized by watching ISIS videos online and still believes he had a religious obligation to carry out the attack, his court-appointed defense lawyer said in opening statements of his terrorism trial Monday.

“And as we sit here today, he still believes that, he still believes the ISIS messaging and he still believes it was God’s will that he do what he did,” Saipov’s attorney David Patton said.

It was God’s will that the federal jury was having none of it, and they nailed him on all 28 counts. Now it’s a death penalty decision.

A federal jury on Thursday convicted Sayfullo Saipov of murder and terrorism charges for killing eight people by intentionally driving a truck onto a Manhattan bike path in 2017, clearing the way for jurors to decide whether to sentence him to death.

Saipov, a 34-year-old Uzbek man who lived in New Jersey, was convicted of all 28 counts he faced, including providing material support to Islamic State. On Feb. 6 the trial will move to its next phase, in which prosecutors will argue that Saipov should be given the death penalty and defense attorneys will push instead for him to receive a sentence of life in prison.

It’s also a test of the squish Biden administration’s stance on the death penalty, which they oppose. If ever justice called for vengeance in kind, this is the moment. Do they have the intestinal fortitude for the follow-through?

Will Biden dare to let this monster have a shot at life?

…The death-penalty trial is the first to take place during the administration of President Biden, who while campaigning said that he would seek legislation to end the federal death penalty. Attorney General Merrick Garland hasn’t authorized U.S. attorneys to seek the death penalty in any new cases and has withdrawn prior requests for death sentences in federal cases involving at least 25 defendants, the Justice Department said, but not in Saipov’s case.

The folks who were brutally slaughtered that day have rights, too. CNN did a lovely piece on them.

Their names:

Nicholas Cleves
Darren Drake
Ann-Laure Decadt

Five friends from Argentina on a once in a lifetime trip
Hernán Diego Mendoza
Diego Enrique Angelini
Alejandro Damián Pagnucco
Ariel Erlij
Hernán Ferruchi

I believe this murderous POS should be required to discover there are no virgins anywhere he’s headed.