Federal prosecutors weighing whether to seek death penalty

Firebomber sentenced to life without parole for deadly attack on Colorado hostage rally

Mohamed Soliman, 46, pleads guilty to 184 felony counts in state court but not guilty to federal hate crime charges, with his lawyers arguing ‘Zionists’ not protected class

A US man accused of lobbing gasoline bombs at a rally for Israeli hostages last year in Boulder, Colorado — an incident that killed an 82-year-old woman and wounded more than a dozen other people — was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Thursday after pleading guilty to all state-level charges against him.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 46, entered the pleas on Thursday 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.

The defendant, speaking through an Arabic interpreter as he answered “guilty” to each charge recited by the Boulder County District Court judge, was formally sentenced following a brief recess. He looked down at a desk throughout the sentencing.

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.

But he has pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges, with his lawyers arguing that the attack targeted “Zionists,” rather than Israelis or Jews.

According to both prosecution and defense accounts in court records, Soliman tossed two Molotov cocktails at the demonstrators, who were calling for the return of people abducted from Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught.

According to prosecutors, 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 some who were burned or injured while fleeing or who were close enough to be considered targets of attempted murder. One victim, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, succumbed to her wounds later that month.

In a statement read in court by a prosecutor, Diamond’s sons asked that Soliman not be allowed to see his family again “since he is responsible for our mother never seeing her family again.”

Andrew and Ethan Diamond said their mother suffered “indescribable pain” for over three weeks before her death. “In those weeks, we learned the full meaning of the expressions living hell and fate worse than death,” Diamond’s sons said in the statement.

In another statement read by a prosecutor, a physician who was a victim of the attack described the helplessness of seeing Diamond suffering and knowing that she would not survive.

Speaking to the court through an interpreter for nearly half an hour on Thursday, Soliman offered apologies to the victims and condolences for Diamond’s death. “There are no words that can express my sadness for her passing,” Soliman said.

He said he wasn’t asking for leniency at sentencing for his convictions in state court and wanted prosecutors pressing federal hate crime charges against him not to seek the death penalty.

“If I went back, I would not have done this, as this is not according to the teaching of Islam,” Soliman said. “What I did came out of myself and only myself.”

Prosecutors are weighing whether to seek the death penalty in the federal case, according to Soliman’s attorneys.

Investigators allege Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration. He threw two of the more than two dozen Molotov cocktails he had brought with him. Police said he told them he got scared because he had never hurt anyone before.

According to federal prosecutors, the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual connection to Israel. According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, Soliman “stated that he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”

Soliman “stated that he hated the Zionist group and did this because he hated this group and needed to stop them from taking over ‘our land,’ which he explained to be Palestine,” according to the same affidavit, and “stated he would do it [conduct an attack] again.”

The rally Soliman attacked was calling for the return of the 20 living hostages whom the Hamas terror group was then holding captive in the Gaza Strip, along with the bodies of 28 more. The hostages’ return was secured in October, through a US-brokered deal.

Soliman’s federal defense lawyers argue he should not have been charged with hate crimes, because he was motivated by opposition to Zionism. A victim’s political views — unlike their race, religion or national origin — are not themselves the basis for federal hate crime charges.

Soliman’s attorneys have also said in court filings that the attack “was profoundly inconsistent” with Soliman’s prior conduct and “came as a total shock to his family.”

The defendant had been living with his family in a two-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs — about 97 miles (156 kilometers) away — at the time of the attack. He had moved to the US from Kuwait in 2022 with his wife and their five children and worked in a series of low-paying jobs.

The couple divorced in April.

Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, was living in the US illegally at the time of the attack.

Soliman’s then-wife, Hayam El Gamal, and their children spent 10 months in immigration detention until a federal judge in Texas ordered their release in April.

An immigration appeals court had dismissed their case to stay in the US and issued a deportation order. But US District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio allowed their release on the condition that El Gamal and her oldest child, who is 18, wear electronic monitoring.

Soliman’s attorneys seek to block the family’s deportation until a judge determines they won’t need to be present for court proceedings in his federal case.