President Donald Trump said Thursday the suspect in the deadliest terror attack in New York City since 2001 should be executed, and backtracked from an earlier call to send him to the military detention facility at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba because the stateside system is quicker.

“Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system,” Trump tweeted. “There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!”

Trump on Wednesday said he “would certainly consider” sending the suspect out of the country to Guantanamo Bay, where terror suspects captured outside the U.S. have been detained. No one arrested in the U.S. has ever been sent to the prison camp and there hasn’t been a detainee sent there from overseas since 2008.

Eight people were killed and 11 – including two children – were injured after a truck was driven into a cycleway in lower Manhattan, close to the site of the 9/11 memorial, on Tuesday afternoon. 

The Uzbek national who plowed through a New York bicycle path was associated with Islamic State but "radicalised domestically," the state's governor Andrew Cuomo has said.

The suspect, 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, was shot by police at the end of the rampage in lower Manhattan Tuesday but was expected to recover from his wounds.