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An unrepentant and defiant Islamic extremist received 10 life sentences and another 260 years in prison on Wednesday for killing eight people with a truck on a bike path in Manhattan on Halloween in 2017, as a judge decried his “callous and cowardly” crimes.
“The conduct in this case is among the worst, if not the worst I’ve ever seen,” said U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick, as he announced a sentence designed to underscore the severity of the terrorist attack Sayfullo Saipov claimed he carried out on behalf of the Islamic State group.
A life sentence was mandatory after a jury rejected the death penalty in March, but prosecutors had asked Broderick to impose eight consecutive life sentences and two concurrent life sentences. They also wanted an extra 260 years to send a stern message to other like-minded terrorists. And that’s what the judge did.
Broderick cited the defiance of Saipov, who, given a chance to speak, said the tears of victims and family members in the courtroom over a six-month period would fill a single tissue while the tears and blood of the Islamic population worldwide would fill the courtroom.
In a rambling rant delivered through a translator, Saipov spent most of an hour talking about the creation of religions and how the devil was instrumental in the creation of the human population.
When he finished, a relative of one of his victims stood up and shouted: “The only act of the devil here is the act you did!” Then she immediately sat down and Broderick announced the sentence.
“You did not and you do not care about their pain and their suffering,” the judge said of Saipov’s victims.
