Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek immigrant accused of plowing a truck down a New York City bike path, killing eight people, told investigators he had been inspired by watching ISIS videos and began planning the attack a year ago, according to a criminal complaint filed against him on Wednesday.
Saipov, seated in a wheelchair, appeared for a brief hearing in Manhattan federal court Wednesday evening before Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses. A Russian interpreter translated for Saipov. Saipov did not ask for bail and was remanded to federal custody. It was not immediately clear where he would be held.
Moses appointed public defense attorney David Patton to represent Saipov. Patton asked Moses that she recommend that Saipov be given a wheelchair or cane while in custody. He said Saipov was in "a significant amount of pain" and asked that he be given treatment for that as well. Moses agreed to the requests.
Twenty-nine-year-old Saipov, who was hospitalised after he was shot by a police officer and arrested, confessed to authorities that he made a trial run with a rental truck on 22 October to practice turning the vehicle and "stated that he felt good about what he had done" after the attack, the complaint said.
The 10-page charging document said Saipov waived his rights to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination in agreeing to speak to investigators without an attorney present from his bed at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.
In the course of that interview, the complaint said, Saipov told investigators he chose Halloween for the attack because he believed more people would be on the streets and said he had originally planned to strike the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the bike path on the western edge of lower Manhattan.
The complaint said Saipov had requested permission to display the flag of the ISIS militant group in his hospital room.
It said he was particularly motivated by seeing a video in which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the campaign by ISIS to seize territory for a self-proclaimed caliphate within Iraq and Syria, exhorted Muslims in the United States and elsewhere to support the group's cause.
Investigators found thousands of ISIS-related propaganda images and videos on a cellphone belonging to Saipov, including video clips showing ISIS prisoners being beheaded, run over by a tank and shot in the face, the complaint said.
Saipov was charged with one count of providing material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organisation, specifically ISIS, and one count of violence and destruction of motor vehicles causing the deaths of eight people.
Manhattan acting US Attorney Joon Kim said the first count carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while the second would make Saipov eligible for capital punishment if convicted, if the government chose to seek the death penalty. Additional or different charges could be brought later in an indictment, Kim said.
Later in the day US President Donald Trump called for the death penalty on Wednesday him, describing the man as a "terrorist".
(This story has been edited for length.)
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