Defence criticizes years-long monitoring of terror defendant
Posted Mar 18, 2019 2:39 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEW YORK — Defence lawyers for a man charged with killing eight people in a New York City terrorist attack say the U.S. surveilled their client surreptitiously and perhaps illegally for years.
The lawyers said in a court filing Monday that they think Sayfullo Saipov’s (sy-foo-LOH’ sah-YEE’-pawf’s) electronic communications may have been vacuumed up through bulk surveillance or by targeting individuals overseas.
They are demanding more U.S. disclosures to defend Saipov in a death penalty case arising from the Oct. 31, 2017 attack.
Saipov has pleaded not guilty to charges that he drove a truck down a Manhattan bike path on Halloween in 2017, running over cyclists, before crashing his vehicle into a school bus. He was shot by a police officer and arrested at the scene.
The Associated Press
