OMM Newsroom
Mohamed Sabry Soliman has pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges over a firebomb attack on protesters in Boulder, Colorado, according to BBC World.
Prosecutors said Soliman threw Molotov cocktails at the demonstrators on 1 June 2025, injuring at least 12 people. One of the injured, Karen Diamond, died three weeks later.
Soliman pleaded guilty in May to 101 state charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced to life in prison. He had initially pleaded not guilty in the federal case.
Prosecutors are seeking a federal sentence of life in prison plus 50 years, CBS, the BBC’s US partner, reported. Soliman is due to be sentenced in January.
Authorities said Soliman had planned the attack for a year and watched videos about explosives before driving from his home in Colorado Springs to the protest in Boulder.
As he threw the Molotov cocktails, Soliman shouted “Free Palestine”. The protesters were members of “Run for Their Lives” in Colorado, a group that met weekly to call for the release of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attacks.
Diamond’s family said her husband, Lou, was also severely burned and spent a month recovering in a hospital burn unit.
Soliman, an Egyptian national, told police after his arrest that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people”, according to court documents.
He arrived in California in 2022 on a non-immigrant visa that expired in February 2023, CBS reported.
The attack heightened concerns about antisemitic violence in the United States. It took place shortly after a fatal shooting outside a Jewish centre in Washington, DC.
