Life imprisonment for terrorist who killed 8 people with truck in New York City

Uzbek terrorist Sayfullo Saipov was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he killed eight people on a bike path in Manhattan, New York, with a truck five years ago.

The 35-year-old Islamic extremist, who was trying to impress a terrorist group, was convicted in late January on 28 counts of terrorism and murder related to the 2017 attack, but a decision was yet to be made on what sentence to impose on him.

The Department of Justice called for capital punishment at the time of his indictment. However, the jury was not unanimous in sentencing him to death, so the defendant will serve a life sentence by default.

Reports indicate that the man will spend the rest of his life at ADX Florence in Colorado, the highest security prison in the United States, confined for 22 hours a day to a small cell with the right to two phone calls a month to families and a weekly shower.

The attack

On Halloween 2017, the Uzbek man, who was then living in New Jersey, decided to drive a rented pickup truck down the Hudson River Greenway bike path. Saipov ran over several pedestrians and bicyclists until he hit a school bus.

The terrorist killed a Belgian woman, five Argentines and two Americans. In addition, he injured 18 other people, two of them who now live with permanent injuries.

Prosecutors recounted that the Uzbek never showed any compassion for the victims and that he went so far as to confess that he also planned to go to the Brooklyn Bridge to murder more people.

"The defendant is still committed to jihad and ISIS and violence," said prosecutor Amanda Houle in her closing argument on March 7.