NEW YORK – An Uzbek man who killed eight people in a truck attack in New York six years ago will spend the rest of his life in jail, after jurors on Monday were unable to agree on the death penalty.

Prosecutors had argued for capital punishment for Sayfullo Saipov, who was convicted in January of several murder and terrorism charges over the attack on Oct 31, 2017.

But he received a life term without the possibility of parole after the jury in the Manhattan federal court failed to unanimously agree on the death sentence.

Saipov, now 35, had driven a rented pickup truck down a Manhattan bike path as New Yorkers prepared to celebrate Halloween.

The dead included a group of five friends from Argentina. At least 12 other people were injured before police shot Saipov in the abdomen.

The truck attack was the deadliest attack in New York since the Sept 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda hijackings brought down the World Trade Center buildings.

Saipov, who moved to the United States in 2010, claimed to have acted in the name of the Islamic State militant group, which described him as one of its “soldiers”.

His trial was the first federal prosecution during Mr Joe Biden’s presidency in which the Justice Department sought capital punishment.

That was despite President Biden’s opposition to the death penalty, and a moratorium on all federal executions announced by US Attorney-General Merrick Garland in July 2021.

Experts had suggested it showed that the Justice Department appeared to favour capital punishment for terror offences only.

If Saipov had received the death penalty, then it could have been carried out only if the moratorium was lifted, or under a future US president.

In America, most executions are carried out by states, not the federal government.

New York, which has abolished the death penalty at the state level, last executed a defendant in 1963. AFP