Boulder Firebombing Suspect Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crimes in Attack on Pro-Israel Rally
Mohamed Sabry Soliman pleaded guilty Thursday in Denver to nine federal hate-crime counts and three explosives charges for the June 2025 Boulder attack that killed 82-year-old Karen Diamond; federal sentencing is set for January 7.
The man who threw gasoline bombs at a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado, last year pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal hate-crime charges, according to Reuters' report of the Justice Department's announcement. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 46, an Egyptian national, pleaded guilty in federal court in Denver to nine counts of hate-crime offenses and three explosives charges. The charges are punishable by life in prison after federal prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty, and the plea deal asks that he be sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years, Reuters and the Associated Press reported; his federal sentencing is set for January 7.
Soliman has admitted tossing two Molotov cocktails at people taking part in a June 1, 2025, rally in downtown Boulder held in solidarity with hostages seized by Hamas militants in the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Reuters reported. Prosecutors said he also used a makeshift blowtorch fashioned from a spray bottle, yelled “Free Palestine” as the bombs burst into flames outside a municipal courthouse on Boulder's Pearl Street shopping district, and had disguised himself as a gardener while carrying a crate containing 16 more gasoline bombs that went unused.
Authorities in Colorado identified 29 victims, including 14 who were burned or injured while fleeing and 15 who were close enough to be considered targets of attempted murder, according to Reuters. One victim, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, died of her injuries later that month; her husband suffered severe burns and survived. In the plea, Soliman admitted he committed the attack because of the actual or perceived Jewish religion and Israeli national origin of the group he targeted, the Justice Department said as reported by Reuters.
The federal plea follows Soliman's guilty plea in May to more than 100 state charges, including first-degree murder, for which he is already serving a life prison term, Reuters reported. The firebombing came amid heightened tensions over the 2023 Hamas raid and Israel's war in Gaza, which Reuters noted sparked a surge in anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hate crimes across the United States.
