A man accused of throwing firebombs at a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder last June, killing one person and injuring a dozen others, is set to plead guilty to murder and related charges this week, according to court filings.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman faces up to life in prison without parole for the June 1 attack at Pearl Street, a pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder. The 82-year-old woman who died in the attack was among those initially injured in the assault. Soliman's attorneys revealed the guilty plea plan in recent federal court documents.
Investigators say Soliman, an Egyptian national living in the US without documentation, planned the attack for a year and harbored a stated desire to "kill all Zionist people." He carried more than two dozen molotov cocktails to the demonstration but deployed only two, yelling "Free Palestine" as he threw them at roughly 20 people gathered at the weekly pro-Israel event.
At the time of the attack, Soliman was living in Colorado Springs, about 97 miles away, with his family in a two-bedroom apartment. He had moved to the United States from Kuwait in 2022 with his wife and five children and worked various low-wage jobs. The couple divorced in April.
While Soliman will plead guilty in state court on the murder and attempted murder charges, his case in federal court remains more complex. He continues to maintain not guilty pleas on federal hate crime charges, and prosecutors have been considering whether to seek the death penalty.
Soliman's federal defense team argues he should not face hate crime charges because his motivation stemmed from opposition to Zionism, the political ideology supporting a Jewish state in Israel, rather than animus toward a protected class. Federal law does not classify attacks motivated by political views as hate crimes.
Tara Winer, Boulder's mayor pro tem, described the attack as horrific and noted that victims included close friends of community members. The city of about 100,000 people, home to the University of Colorado, had been shaken by the violence at the popular outdoor market.
Author James Rodriguez: "This case raises sharp questions about how federal prosecutors define hate crimes when political ideology intersects with violence against identifiable communities."
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