Colorado protest firebombing: Soliman pleads guilty to federal hate crime charges

Mohamed Sabry Soliman has pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges over a firebombing attack on protesters in the US state of Colorado who were advocating for the release of Israeli hostages. He had already been found guilty over the same attack in a state case.

Prosecutors said that in June 2025 Soliman threw Molotov cocktails at a group of demonstrators. At least 12 people were injured, one of whom died.

In May he pleaded guilty in the state case to 101 charges, including first-degree murder, resulting in a sentence of life in prison. In the federal case he had initially pleaded not guilty.

According to the BBC's US partner CBS News, prosecutors want Soliman to be sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years over the federal charges.

United States Attorney Peter McNeilly said the sentencing 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.

While he hurled the Molotov cocktails at the crowd on 1 June 2025, he shouted 'Free Palestine'. The group 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.

Karen Diamond, 82, died from injuries caused by the attack three weeks later. Her family said her husband, Lou, was also severely burned and had to recover for a month in a hospital burn unit.

Soliman, an Egyptian national, told police after he was arrested that he wanted to 'kill all Zionist people', according to court documents. He 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 centre in Washington DC.