Assailant pleads guilty to hate crimes in deadly antisemitic attack on US hostage rally – report

DENVER, Colorado — The man who threw gasoline bombs at a rally in support of Israeli hostages last year in Colorado, killing one person and injuring several others in an antisemitic attack, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal hate-crime charges, according to media reports.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 46, an Egyptian national, is already serving a life prison term for his guilty plea in May to more than 100 state charges, including first-degree murder.

Soliman pleaded guilty to nine counts of hate-crime offenses and three explosives charges in federal court in Denver, according to the Denver Post. The charges are punishable by life in prison after federal prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty.

The plea deal asks that Soliman be sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years, prosecutor Melissa Hindman said during the hearing, the Post reported. Soliman will be sentenced on January 7, Colorado Public Radio reported.

Soliman has admitted tossing two Molotov cocktails at people taking part in a rally in downtown Boulder on June 1, 2025, held in solidarity with hostages seized by Hamas terrorists during the October 7, 2023, onslaught.

In the plea deal, Soliman admitted targeting the demonstrators because of their real or perceived religion or national origin. Handcuffed and shackled, Soliman calmly answered Senior Judge John Kane’s questions through a translator during the roughly hour-long hearing, the Post reported.

Prosecutors said Soliman yelled, “Free Palestine” as the gasoline bombs he lobbed at the crowd burst into flames outside a municipal courthouse in the heart of Boulder’s popular Pearl Street shopping district.

Soliman had disguised himself as a gardener as he approached the rally and had carried a crate containing 16 more gasoline bombs that went unused, according to prosecutors.

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. One victim, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, died of her injuries later that month. Her husband suffered severe burns and survived.

A dog was also injured in the attack, and Soliman has been charged with animal cruelty.

In the aftermath of the attack, police said Soliman had planned to kill all of the participants in the hostage rally, but threw just two of his 18 Molotov cocktails “because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before.”

The firebombing came amid heightened tensions over the 2023 Hamas massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza, which sparked a surge in antisemitism across the US and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that critics said frequently featured antisemitic elements.

The attack took place barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” shot people outside a Jewish museum in Washington, killing two Israeli Embassy staffers who had attended an event there.

Admitting his guilt in state court nearly six months ago, Soliman denounced his own crimes as contrary to “the teachings of Islam” and insisted he bore no ill will toward Jewish people. He went on to lament the “thousands of families who have lost their families in Palestine and Gaza,” and said the “enemy is Zionism.”

According to affidavits filed in court by prosecutors, Soliman told investigators after his arrest that he had planned his attack for a year, but delayed going through with it until after his daughter had graduated from high school.

Soliman, who lived with his wife and five children in Colorado Springs, has asserted that his family members were unaware of his intentions beforehand.

He moved to Colorado Springs three years before the attack, after 17 years in Kuwait, according to court documents.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.