The mother of a New Yorker killed in 2017, when a man driving a lorry mowed down cyclists and pedestrians on a Manhattan bike path, told a court on Wednesday that no punishment for the attacker could compare to her pain.
"This evil murderer has destroyed so many lives," said Monica Missio, the mother of victim Nicholas Cleves, before Sayfullo Saipov was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Saipov in January was convicted on murder and terrorism charges for the attack, in which he killed eight people and injured 12.
"It disgusts me that he gets to wake up every day while my son does not," Ms Missio said. "His barbarism and cruelty fills me with rage."
More than 20 victims and family members spoke before US District Judge Vernon Broderick formally sentenced Saipov, 35, to eight consecutive life sentences and another 260 years in prison.
The life sentence became automatic after a jury was deadlocked on whether he should receive the death penalty.
Saipov used a Home Depot rental truck to cut down people on a path along the Hudson River on Manhattan's West Side.
He had hoped that the attack would help him gain membership in ISIS, prosecutors said.
"The conduct in this case is among the worst if not the worst I've ever seen, both in terms of the impact it had on the victims and on the sheer unrepentant nature of the defendant," the judge said before announcing Saipov's sentence.
Rachel Pharn, who survived the attack, said she wanted to know what had motivated him.
"Mr Saipov, I can forgive you for what you did to me, for breaking my spirit," Ms Pharn said.
"But when I look around the room, when I think of all the pain you caused, that I cannot forgive. That is between you, them and Allah."
Addressing the court before sentencing, a remorseless Saipov appeared to praise ISIS and suggested his victims suffered less than Muslims around the world.
"I was here in the court during the three-month trial, and I saw and I heard the victims, families and friends," he said through an interpreter.
"The court would be filled up with the tears and blood of the Muslim population."
Many of those killed or injured in the attack were foreigners visiting New York and most of the people who spoke at the hearing had travelled from Argentina and Belgium.
Saipov is expected to be housed at Colorado's Supermax jail, the most secure US federal prison, where he is due to spend 22 or 23 hours a day alone in a cell with a concrete bed.
His case was the first federal death penalty trial since Democratic President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
Mr Biden had pledged during his campaign to abolish capital punishment in federal cases.
