The Uzbek national accused of killing eight people by driving a speeding truck along a New York City bike path last October spoke of a “war” led by Islamic State at a pre-trial hearing on Friday and dismissed the court’s judgment as not important. After U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick scheduled Oct. 7, 2019, as Saipov’s trial date on charges that he used a rental truck to kill eight last Halloween to help the Islamic State, the bushy-bearded defendant raised his hand and was permitted to deliver a 10-minute speech. Earlier, he had pleaded not guilty through his lawyer to the latest indictment in the Oct. 31 truck attack near the World Trade Center. A Manhattan federal judge on Friday set a trial date and heard a 10-minute rant from accused West Side bike-path terrorist Sayfullo Saipov following a promise by prosecutors that the Justice Department will decide on seeking the death penalty by September. Because his remarks in court could be interpreted as conceding guilt only minutes after Saipov pled not guilty to murder charges through his lawyer, U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick interrupted Saipov to read him his constitutional rights, including that anything he said in court could be used against him in his trial. "I understand you, but I' m not worried about that at all," said Saipov, who was born in Uzbekistan but immigrated to the United States and became a U.S. citizen. “…These are laws that are made up to force upon other people.”

Saipov, allowed to speak by the judge over prosecution objections, also left no doubt about his support for the Islamic State, and Islamic religious law – echoing statements he allegedly made after his 2017 capture. “The public deserves a speedy trial, and the surviving victims deserve to know when that trial is going to be.”

Defense lawyers have said the government should accept a guilty plea and a sentence of life in prison without parole to provide victims’ families and the public with closure.
Prosecutors in the United States charge Sayfullo Saipov with a further six counts of attempted murder, in addition to the 22 other offences already charged in connection to a vehicle-ramming attack in New York. Saipov enters pleas of not guilty.