Colorado: Boulder fire-bombing attack suspect pleads guilty to all state charges

Colorado's Boulder fire-bombing attack suspect pleads guilty to all state charges on Thursday. 

The man was accused of lobbing gasoline bombs at a rally last year in Boulder, Colorado, killing one ‌person and leaving more than a dozen others injured.

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As per officials, the 46 years old Egyptian national Mohamed Soliman entered his plea to dozens of felony counts, including first-degree murder under two definitions of the offense, each carrying a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Soliman, dressed in white-and-orange-striped jail garb, spoke through an Arabic interpreter as he answered "guilty" to each charge recited by the Boulder County District Court judge during the hearing, shown in a livestream of the proceedings.

The suspect was due to be formally sentenced later in the hearing, immediately following delivery of impact statements by victims who took turns addressing the court to recount the horror of the attack and its aftermath.

Soliman had been charged with a total of 184 counts stemming from the June 1, 2025, attack, including multiple charges of murder, attempted murder, assault, and criminal use of explosives and incendiary devices.

He still faces separate hate crime charges in federal court that carry a possible life sentence or the death penalty.

According to both prosecution and defense accounts in court records, Soliman tossed two Molotov cocktails at people taking part in a peaceful rally in downtown Boulder organized by the group Run For Your Lives to draw attention to the plight of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas ‌militants from Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Prosecutors said Soliman also used a makeshift blowtorch fashioned from a commercial weed sprayer during his attack, in which he yelled "Free Palestine" as the gasoline bombs he lobbed at the crowd burst into flames.

Authorities identified a total of 29 victims, including 14 who were burned or injured while fleeing, and 15 others who were close enough to be considered targets of attempted murder. One victim, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, died of her injuries later that month.

According to affidavits filed in court by prosecutors, Soliman told investigators after his arrest that he wanted to "kill all Zionist people" and had planned his attack for a year, though he delayed going through with it until after his daughter had graduated from high school.

According to a court filing by defense lawyers, Soliman offered to plead guilty in the federal hate-crimes case in return for a lifelong prison sentence, but the government has yet to decide whether to accept his proposal.

The violence in Boulder followed the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy aides outside Washington's Capitol Jewish Museum a month earlier.