NEW YORK—A federal prosecutor urged a New York jury to sentence Sayfullo Saipov to death as the penalty phase of his trial began on Monday, saying his execution would be the only just punishment after he killed eight people in his 2017 attack on a Manhattan bike path.
It marked the first time jurors have been asked to vote for the federal death penalty since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 after promising voters he would abolish the punishment.
Defense lawyers for the Uzbek immigrant called the death penalty barbaric, and urged the jurors to vote instead for life in prison for Saipov, who mowed down people with a rental truck on Oct. 31, 2017….