President Trump in a late-night tweet said the suspected terrorist who struck New York should get the death penalty.
“NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room,” he tweeted. “He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”
{mosads}Trump earlier in the day Wednesday said he would “certainly consider” sending the suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, to the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
“I would certainly consider that, yes,” Trump said when asked by a reporter at the White House. “Send him to Gitmo.”
The portion of Trump’s tweet about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) flag is a reference to the complaint filed against Saipov that claims the suspect asked to place the terror group’s flag in his hospital room.
Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbek national with lawful permanent resident status in the U.S., is accused of killing eight people and injuring nearly a dozen others with a truck on a bike path in lower Manhattan on Halloween. He has been charged with providing material support to ISIS, in addition to violence and destruction of a motor vehicle with willful disregard for human life, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York announced Wednesday.
Trump in the wake of the attack placed blame on the American justice system, calling it “a laughingstock.”
“We need quick justice and we need strong justice — much quicker and much stronger than we have right now,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting. “Because what we have right now is a joke and it’s a laughingstock. And no wonder so much of this stuff takes place.”
–Mallory Shelbourne contributed to this report, which was updated at 7:15 a.m.