NEW YORK – Emotions ran high Thursday during the death sentence proceedings of a man convicted of murdering eight people on a New York City bike path as the man’s father professed shame and love for his son and that the accused’s uncle was shouting “filthy IS bastards!” and knocked on a door as he left the room.
Habibulloh Saipov’s testimony in Manhattan federal court and the ensuing outburst came before a jury to decide whether Sayfullo Saipov receives the death penalty or life in prison for the 2017 Halloween attack as he was driving a truck on the busy road near the World Trade Center. Memorial center, crushing pedestrians and cyclists.
“I’m sorry this happened,” Judge Vernon S. Broderick said after the jury left the courtroom. He said he was concerned about the effect the dramatic turn could have on jurors and warned defense lawyers to ensure such behavior does not happen again. Testimony did not resume for two hours.
“That we are disappointed by this is an understatement,” attorney David Patton told the judge. Broderick then kicked the uncle out of court.
The death penalty phase began after the same jury last month convicted Sayfullo Saipov, 35, who slumped in his chair throughout the trial and appeared shameless and unimpressed.
But she was comforted when her father, whom she recently saw for the first time in 13 years, spoke out against the terror attack, saying she had brought the family to shame.
When asked how he reacted to his son’s attack by defense attorney David Stern, Habibulloh Saipov replied: “My soul has been destroyed.”
“He committed a terrible tragedy. He killed eight people and injured many more and ruined their lives,” Saipov said.
“What do you think of what he did?” Stern asked.
“I feel very bad about this. And I would like to apologize to everyone, to all the victims,” he continued.
Habibulloh Saipov testified that he once told his son after working in the United States for five years that “people there are sincere and always smile at each other”.
When the son arrived in the country in 2010 and started working as a truck driver, the father said they often had hour-long conversations to keep him awake on long journeys.
Habibulloh Saipov cried as he said he found out his son had carried out the attack and saw his wife collapse and pass out after seeing the footage of the aftermath on her phone. He said he was then subjected to 15 days of interrogation by the police.
At one point, Sayfullo Saipov removed his coronavirus mask from his face to wipe his eyes as his father cried.
The father also spoke of phone calls in which Sayfullo Saipov boasted that he should feel lucky to have a son who had done something heroic.
“Do you feel lucky to have a son who did what he did?” Stern asked.
“Not at all,” replies the father.
Habibulloh Saipov admitted he would probably never see his son again after he returned to his home country of Uzbekistan on Friday.
When asked if she still loved him, she replied, “With all my heart.”
He added that he hopes his son will not be sentenced to death so that he realizes the truth about his crimes.
The uncle’s outburst and another scream from an unidentified woman left a relative of one of the victims sobbing when the judge called a nurse. He also ordered the search of Sayfullo Saipov.
The words “Dirty ISIS bastards” were played through an interpreter at the judge’s request. The interpreter said that anything else anyone said was unintelligible.
Sayfullo Saipov told investigators after his arrest that he carried out the killings after the Islamic State group called for terrorist attacks.
Testimony resumed after a long pause, and the judge told the jury that the uncle’s outburst was not directed against the court, the jury, the prosecutors, the defense or the legal process.
Hamidulloh Saipov, another uncle, testified that he too still loves his nephew, even though he thinks he did “something wrong, something amazing”.
“He broke everyone’s heart. It broke our hearts,” the uncle said. “Everyone was shocked. Everyone was sick.”
He said Sayfullo Saipov changed because he was “influenced by bad people” and added that he hoped his nephew would “come back himself”.
Sayfullo Saipov’s sister, a year his junior, ended the day’s testimony with a tearful description of the damage her brother’s actions caused to their parents’ health.