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Guillermo Banchini, an architect, and friends were cycling in
New York during a 30-year high school reunion trip on Tuesday
when a driver of a pickup truck plowed down a bike path.
"How could someone think of, plan and do something like this? We
cannot get our heads around it," Banchini said at the Argentine
consulate in New York.
"Let there be justice. Let this not be repeated, not here nor
anywhere in the world."
Eight people, including a Belgian woman, a New Yorker and a New
Jersey man, were killed and 11 injured in lower Manhattan in the
attack along the Hudson River.
The suspect, 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov, was
charged with acting on behalf of Islamic State, whose followers
have carried out vehicle attacks in several cities, mostly in
Europe.
The five deceased Argentines, businessmen and architects aged 48
to 49, were all alums of a polytechnic high school in Rosario,
Argentina's third-largest city.
Another member of the group, Martin Ludovico Marro, was injured
and hospitalized in Manhattan and did not attend the televised
news conference.
Banchini, speaking on behalf of the other Argentine survivors,
said the pain they were feeling would always endure, but they
would move forward the way they had learned as close knit
childhood friends.
"In the name of those values, and a way of life, we want to make
a bet - love conquers hate," he said.
(Reporting by Maximilian Heath and Caroline Stauffer; Editing by
Andrew Hay)
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