The man who killed one person and injured a dozen others in a firebombing attack on demonstrators supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza pleaded guilty to 12 federal charges Thursday morning in Denver, in a deal that has taken the death penalty off the table.
U.S. Assistant Attorney Melissa Hindman said that both the government and defense lawyers are asking for Mohamed Sabry Soliman to be sentenced to life plus 50 years. His sentencing was set for Jan. 7.
Soliman, who is already serving a life sentence for state charges in the June 2025 attack, also agreed to drop his motions trying to stop his family from being deported. He had been trying to keep his ex-wife and children in the country to help in his defense case, while his ex-wife has separately sought to remain in the U.S. arguing that she has a claim for asylum.
Soliman, 46, pleaded guilty to several federal hate crimes, including one that resulted in death. Wearing a brown T-shirt and khaki pants, Soliman sat at a table with his three lawyers, his arms and legs shackled.
A section of the courtroom gallery reserved for victims was full. Boulder police chief Stephen Redfearn sat in the back row behind them.
Soliman lit two Molotov cocktails and threw them at members of Run for Their Lives as they gathered on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall, injuring more than a dozen people, including a Holocaust survivor.
The group had been gathering weekly in downtown Boulder for nearly two years to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages kidnapped during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
An 82-year-old woman, Karen Diamond, was burned in the attack and died three weeks later of her injuries. She was active in Boulder’s Jewish community and civic organizations and had run the Bolder Boulder race days before the attack.
Federal investigators said Soliman also carried a backpack weed sprayer that contained a flammable liquid and black plastic container that had at least 18 glass bottles and jars, all with flammable liquid and red rags stuffed through the top to act as wicks.
In May, Soliman was sentenced to life in prison plus over 2,000 more years immediately after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and dozens of other state charges.
At his sentencing, he apologized for his actions and expressed sympathy for the victims who spoke in court. But he rejected the idea that he hated Jewish people and said instead that he was against Zionism, calling it an “enemy.”
Though Soliman is already serving a life sentence in his state case, the federal case is significant because it holds Soliman accountable for the “hateful ideology” that motivated his attack, U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado Peter McNeilly said during a news conference following the hearing.
The hate crime charges recognize that Soliman targeted the demonstrators because he believed they were Jewish and Israeli, McNeilly said. He said he also felt the plea agreement delivers justice to the victims, while securing a conviction without the need for a trial.
“This resolution ensures the defendant will never spend another day with his family. That is what he did to the Diamond family, and it’s important that the criminal cases ensure the same result for him,” McNeilly said.
Diamond and her husband were married for more than six decades. She was also a mother, grandmother and vibrant member of the Boulder community “who still had so much to give,” he said.
Other victims continue to grapple with the aftermath of the attack. Some are still recovering from physical injuries, while others face lasting emotional and psychological trauma, he said.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche decided to pursue a life sentence rather than the death penalty, McNeilly said. He declined to share more details on the decision, calling the process confidential.
“The process to determine ultimately the decision of whether to seek the death penalty in the federal system, which which does still exist even though it’s been abolished at the state level here in Colorado, that decision ultimately rests with the attorney general of the United States, and he is the one who made the decision in this case,” McNeilly said.
The “overwhelming voice of the victims” supports the life sentence stipulated under Soliman’s plea deal, he said.
McNeilly was adamant that Soliman would not be deported.
“The defendant will not spend a day outside of prison in the United States,” he said.
McNeilly said the plea agreement doesn’t address what will happen to Soliman’s family now that he has agreed to drop his efforts to keep his ex-wife and children in the United States to serve as possible witnesses.
Federal immigration authorities detained Soliman’s wife and their five children, who lived in Colorado Springs, following the attack. Hayam El Gamal and her children, ages 5 to 18, were detained in a family detention center in Texas for nearly 10 months until a federal judge ordered them be released.
The family immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt and had a pending asylum case. They were working and going to school in Colorado Springs, where they had lived since 2022.
“This case now places no constraint on those immigration proceedings,” McNeilly said. He said the immigration case is separate and it would be inappropriate for him to discuss them.
Ed Victor of Louisville, who was at the event when it was attacked by Soliman, said having Soliman plead guilty to hate crimes was important because it shows it was an anti-Semitic act, not just one motivated by opposition to Israel.
“He was targeting us for who we were at that time,” said Victor, who is Jewish and wasn’t physically injured in the attack.
He said he accepted the government’s decision not to pursue the death penalty, because it will both wrap up the legal case and move Soliman “off the public stage” more quickly.
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who led the state case against Soliman, said in a statement that the guilty plea in Soliman’s federal case marked another step toward justice for the victims, their families and the Boulder community.
“As reflected by today’s guilty plea in the federal case, acts of violence based on hate or bias have no place in Boulder, in Colorado, or anywhere,” he said.
Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.