A man accused of a firebomb attack that killed one person and injured a dozen others while they were demonstrating in Boulder, Colorado, in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza has pleaded guilty to murder and other charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman entered the pleas on Thursday in Boulder county district court. He now faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the attack in downtown Boulder last June.
Soliman’s attorneys revealed he would plead guilty in a Sunday court filing in a related federal case. Soliman has meanwhile pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges.
Prosecutors are weighing whether to seek the death penalty in the federal case, according to his attorneys.
An 82-year-old woman who was injured in the attack later died. A dozen others also were injured.
Soliman is an Egyptian national who federal authorities say was living in the US without documentation. Investigators allege he planned the attack for a year and was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people”.
Tara Winer, Boulder’s mayor pro tem, said the attack was horrific and victims included close friends.
Soliman had been living with his family in a two-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs – about 97 miles (156km) away – at the time of the attack. He had moved to the US from Kuwait in 2022 with his wife and their five children and worked in a series of low-paying jobs.
The couple divorced in April.
Investigators allege Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration at Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall. He threw two of more than two dozen molotov cocktails he had with him while yelling, “Free Palestine!”
Federal prosecutors allege the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual connection to Israel. Soliman’s federal defense lawyers argue he should not have been charged with hate crimes because he was motivated by opposition to Zionism, the political movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.
