Man who firebombed a demonstration in Colorado, killing 1, is sentenced
to life in prison
[May 08, 2026]
By MEAD GRUVER
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A judge sentenced a man to life in prison without
the possibility of parole Thursday after he pleaded guilty to killing
one person and injuring a dozen others in a 2025 firebombing attack on a
demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, in support of Israeli hostages in
Gaza.
Speaking to the court through an interpreter, Mohamed Sabry Soliman
apologized to the victims and expressed regret for the attack last June
as not in line with Islamic teaching.
Yet Soliman, an Egyptian national who federal authorities say was living
in the U.S. illegally, targeted the victims because they were Jewish,
Boulder County District Judge Nancy Salomone pointed out before
sentencing him.
“You chose a time and a place and a set of circumstances and weapons
that were designed to inflict the most pain that you could,” Salomone
said.
Besides life in prison, Soliman's sentence includes hundreds of years
for dozens of charges including attempted murder, assault and attempted
assault.
The June 1 attack rattled Boulder, a scenic city of 100,000 people near
the mountains northwest of Denver.
Posing as a gardener, Soliman attacked the demonstrators on Pearl
Street, a quaint downtown pedestrian mall lined with shops and
restaurants. Jewish community members had been demonstrating there
weekly in support of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip since Oct.
7, 2023.
Yelling “Free Palestine," Soliman lit and threw two Molotov cocktails
out of 18 he'd brought in a box. The bursting bottles filled with
gasoline badly burned Karen Diamond, 82, and injured a dozen others.
Diamond died three weeks later after what her sons in a statement called
“indescribable pain.”
Soliman still faces federal hate crimes charges. He has pleaded not
guilty while prosecutors in that case weigh whether to seek the death
penalty.
The attack could have been even worse, Boulder County District Attorney
Michael Dougherty told the court before the sentencing. Soliman tried
twice to buy a gun and was denied, Dougherty said. So he “decided to set
them on fire" in what Dougherty called a “cowardly” crime.
Soliman entered the U.S. in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired
in February 2023. He filed for asylum and was granted a work
authorization in March 2023, but that also expired, federal authorities
said.
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Bouquets of flowers stand along a makeshift memorial for victims of
an attack outside of the Boulder County courthouse on June 3, 2025,
in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)
He worked a series of low-paying jobs. At the time of the attack,
Soliman was living with his wife and their five children in an
apartment in Colorado Springs.
Federal authorities alleged Soliman planned the attack for a year,
and an FBI affidavit said Soliman told police after his arrest that
he sought "to kill all Zionist people," a reference to the movement
to establish and protect a Jewish state in Israel.
Soliman said in court that he respected Jewish people he has known,
but questioned the deaths of innocent people in Israeli attacks on
Gaza.
“Yes, I am against Israel and I can’t deny that. And that is my
right,” Soliman said.
Soliman’s federal defense lawyers argue he should not have been
charged with hate crimes because he was motivated by opposition to
Zionism. An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not
considered a hate crime under federal law.
State prosecutors identified 29 victims in the attack. Thirteen were
physically injured. The others were considered victims because they
could have been hurt. A dog was also injured in the attack, and
Soliman was charged with animal cruelty.
Soliman’s wife, Hayam El Gamal, and their children spent 10 months
in immigration detention until April, when a federal judge in Texas
ordered their release. The couple divorced in April.
An immigration appeals court had dismissed their case to stay in the
U.S. and issued a deportation order. But U.S. 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.
___
Associated Press writer Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to
this story.
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