Argentine visitors describe Hudson River bike path attack that killed their friends on celebratory NYC trip
Ten high school friends from Argentina traveled to New York for several days of fun — but only five went home after accused terrorist Sayfullo Saipov ran them down with a rented truck, witnesses at Saipov’s trial recounted Wednesday.
“We were celebrating 30 years since we graduated, 35 years since we knew each other, and there were some birthdays we were celebrating,” Juan Pablo Trevisan testified.
One of the birthdays was his own, Trevisan said.
Trevisan and his friends were cycling in pairs on the Hudson River Park bike path between Watts and Vestry Sts. on Oct. 31, 2017, when prosecutors say Saipov sped his rented truck along the bike lane.
As Trevisan reached an arm out and asked one of his friends to stop and wait up, he heard a loud thumping noise. “At that moment, the pickup truck [hit] my arm and my wrist, and there was a sign that was dragging that came off and hit my arm.”
Another member of the Argentine group, Martin Marro, recalled a fellow surviving friend tending to him as he bled profusely on the sidewalk.
“He said to stay calm, that he was there to take care of me and to protect me and to make sure that I wouldn’t drown in my own blood,” Marro said, adding that among other serious injuries he sustained were fractures to his skull, brain and eye socket.
Trevisan and Marro told their stories on the third day of evidence and arguments at Saipov’s federal death penalty trial.
After the men spoke, federal prosecutors showed the jury photos of the victims’ covered bodies.
Slaughtered were Hernan Diego Mendoza, Alejandro Damian Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Ferruchi and Diego Enrique Angelini.
Also killed were Darren Drake, a 32-year-old from New Jersey, and 23-year-old Nicholas Cleves of New York.
Jurors on Tuesday heard from the devastated loved ones of a 31-year-old mother of two, Ann-Laure Decadt, of Belgium, killed as she rode with her two sisters and mom.
Saipov, 34, has pleaded not guilty to 28 counts alleging he murdered eight people and seriously wounded 11 more.
Jurors have heard a blow-by-blow account of how he rented a Home Depot flatbed truck in Passaic, N.J., and drove into the city, carving a mile-long path of horror along the bike lane that runs parallel to Hudson River Park.
His rampage ended when he crashed into a school bus near Chambers St., seriously injuring a woman and child aboard, and was shot by a police officer.
Prosecutors charge Saipov committed the carnage to become a member of the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS.
They’re seeking capital punishment in the case. If the jurors find Saipov guilty of death penalty-eligible crimes, they will reconvene to determine whether he is put to death or sent to prison for life.
The Uzbekistan native’s lawyers told jurors in opening statements that he was guilty of murder but argued the government had his motive wrong. David Patton said Saipov had no plan or intention of joining ISIS but was galvanized by a delusional desire to become a martyr.
He said Saipov was radicalized in the U.S. during his former job as a long-haul truck driver, when he consumed conspiracy theories online about “a global war on Islam.”
Jury selection in the case took three months. Prosecutors expect to finish their case sooner than anticipated, possibly by next week.
