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NY suspect charged with terrorism
Requested ISIS flag be displayed in hospital room
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Law enforcement personnel examine the scene Wednesday after a driver mowed down people on a riverfront bike path near the World Trade Center on Tuesday in New York. - photo by Associated Press
NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors brought terrorism charges Wednesday against the Uzbek immigrant accused in the truck rampage that left eight people dead, saying he carried out the attack in response to the Islamic State group's online calls to action and picked Halloween because he knew more people would be out on the streets.Even as he lay wounded in the hospital from police gunfire, 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov asked to display the ISIS flag in his room and said "he felt good about what he had done," prosecutors said in court papers.Meanwhile, the FBI said a second Uzbek — 32-year-old Mukhammadzoir Kadirov — is wanted for questioning in connection with the bloodshed.Saipov, accused of driving the rented Home Depot pickup truck that lurched down a bike path near the World Trade Center memorial on Tuesday, was charged with providing material support to a terrorist group and committing violence and destruction of motor vehicles, resulting in death.The charges can bring the death penalty.His lawyers did not immediately return a message seeking comment.Saipov left behind knives and a note, handwritten in Arabic, that included Islamic religious references and said "it will endure" — a phrase that commonly refers to ISIS, FBI agent Amber Tyree said in court papers.Questioned in his hospital bed, Saipov said he had been inspired by ISIS videos that he watched on his cellphone and began plotting an attack about a year ago, deciding to use a truck about two months ago, Tyree said.During the last few weeks, Saipov searched the internet for information on Halloween in New York City and for truck rentals, the agent said. Saipov even rented a truck on Oct. 22 to practice making turns, Tyree said.He even considering displaying ISIS flags on the truck during the attack but decided against it because he did not want to draw the attention, authorities said.John Miller, deputy New York police commissioner for intelligence, said Saipov "appears to have followed, almost exactly to a T, the instructions that ISIS has put out."In the past few years, the Islamic State has exhorted followers online to use vehicles, knives or other close-at-hand means of killing people in their home countries. England, France and Germany have all seen deadly vehicle attacks since mid-2016.A November 2016 issue of the group's online magazine detailed features that an attack truck or van should have, suggested renting such a vehicle and recommended targeting crowded streets and outdoor gatherings, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a militant-monitoring agency.Carlos Batista, a neighbor of Saipov's in Paterson, New Jersey, said he had seen the suspect and two friends using the same model of rented truck several times in the past three weeks.It was not clear whether Saipov had been on authorities' radar.
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