Soliman pleads guilty to federal hate crime charges in Boulder firebombing

Prosecutors seek life plus 50 years at January sentencing

Mohamed Sabry Soliman pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges in the June 2025 firebombing of a Boulder, Colorado, protest group, adding a federal conviction to the state murder sentence he is already serving. He is due to be sentenced on the federal counts in January.

Prosecutors said Soliman threw Molotov cocktails at the demonstrators on 1 June 2025, injuring at least 12 people, one of whom died. Karen Diamond, 82, died three weeks later from injuries caused by the attack. Her family said her husband, Lou, was also severely burned and had to recover for a month in a hospital burn unit.

The demonstrators were members of Run for Their Lives in Colorado, which met weekly to support the release of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October attacks. As Soliman hurled the Molotov cocktails at the crowd, he shouted “Free Palestine.” He later told police after his arrest that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people,” according to court documents.

The federal plea came after Soliman initially pleaded not guilty in that case. He pleaded guilty in May to 101 state charges, including first-degree murder, resulting in a sentence of life in prison.

United States Attorney Peter McNeilly said prosecutors will recommend a sentence of life in prison plus 50 years on the federal charges, according to CBS News. McNeilly said the recommendation was driven by what the victims wanted.

In light of the plea, McNeilly said, Soliman had dropped motions seeking to keep his family from being deported from the US in case they needed to be witnesses in his case.

Authorities said Soliman planned the attack for a year, watching videos on explosives before driving from his home in Colorado Springs to the Boulder protest. Soliman, an Egyptian national, came to California in 2022 on a non-immigrant visa that expired in February 2023, according to CBS.

The firebombing escalated concerns about antisemitic violence in the US, taking place shortly after a fatal shooting outside a Jewish center in Washington DC.