The final stage of the trial against the perpetrator of the terrorist attack in which 5 Argentines died begins

Next Monday, February 13, the trial against the terrorist will continue Sayfullo Saipov in the Court for the Southern District of New York. Starting at 10:30 a.m. in room 24B of the building located at 500 Pearl Street, the last part of the process will begin, which could lead to a death sentence if the jury grants the request made by the prosecution. . Saipov has already been found guilty of being the perpetrator of the bloodiest terrorist attack since 9/11, when he ran over a group of people on the bike path parallel to the Hudson River with a truck he had rented to Home Depot, killing eight people, including five Argentinians Hernan Mendoza, Diego Angelini, Alexander Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij and Hernan Ferrucci They were with a group of friends celebrating their 30th anniversary as graduates of the Polytechnic College of Rosario and died in the attack on October 31, 2017.

Over the past week, four days before the start of the sentencing phase of the trial, lawyers for Sayfullo Saipov attempted to overturn the government’s decision to seek the death penalty on the grounds that the request for sentencing was a possible ethnic or religious discrimination.

The terrorist’s defense also questioned whether the US government was seeking capital punishment despite imposing a moratorium on federal executions. Lawyers from Uzbekistan pointed to the Biden administration refusing to allow the death penalty in more deadly attacks, including the hate crime at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in which 23 people were killed. were murdered in 2019.

“And given the recent decision to accept Patrick Crusius’ guilty plea to life in prison despite his unrepentant and premeditated heinous murder of 23 Latinos at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the Court should be of great concern The 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,” the defense attorney said. David Patton.

“Saipov is prepared to plead guilty, waive all remedies and consent to life in prison under strict terms that will virtually eliminate his communications with third parties for the foreseeable future,” Patton said in one of the latest attempts to prevent the Uzbek terrorist from being sentenced to death.

Saipov’s defense has asked that if Judge Vernon Broderick is unwilling to enforce the sentence, he should at least order federal prosecutors to release evidence of their decision. The Trump administration authorized the death penalty for Sayfullo Saipov and the Biden administration has done it again.

The defender criticized then-President Donald Trump’s statements promoting Saipov’s execution and his alleged use of the attack with the truck to criticize the so-called “migration on-chain” and the diversity visa lottery system the president had benefited from. terrorist.

“In the days and weeks immediately following the truck attack, then-President Trump consistently demanded that Mr. Saipov face the death penalty solely on the basis of an excessive assessment of his crime and his identity as an Uzbek Muslim immigrant who he was a winner of the Diversity Visa Lottery, an aspect of US immigration policy that has long been the focus of the Trump administration’s ire “said David Patton.

From Monday, the last phase of the trial against the author of the terrorist attack, who could be condemned to the death penalty, will open.

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