By Steve Gorman and Keith Coffman
DENVER, May 7 (Reuters) – The man who lobbed gasoline bombs at a pro-Israel rally in a fiery attack last year that killed one person and left more than a dozen others injured in Colorado pleaded guilty on Thursday to all charges he faced in state court and was sentenced to life in prison.
Mohamed Soliman, 46, an Egyptian national, entered his plea to dozens of felony counts, including first-degree murder under two definitions of the offense, then apologized in court and decried his own crimes as contrary to “the teachings of Islam” in a statement before sentencing was pronounced.
He still faces separate hate-crimes charges in federal court that carry a possible life sentence or capital punishment. Soliman said during his pre-sentencing statement that he wished for federal prosecutors “to impose the death penalty.”
Soliman, dressed in white-and-orange-striped jail garb, spoke through an Arabic interpreter as he answered “guilty” to each charge recited by the Boulder County District Court judge during the hearing, shown in a livestream of the proceedings.
He was sentenced to the maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole following delivery of impact statements by more than a dozen victims who took turns addressing the court to recount the horror of the attack and its aftermath.
Most said the trauma continues to haunt them 11 months after the fact, shattering their sense of safety and security.
Soliman had been charged with a total of 184 counts stemming from the June 1, 2025, attack, including multiple charges of murder, attempted murder, assault and criminal use of explosives and incendiary devices.
According to both prosecution and defense accounts in court records, Soliman tossed two Molotov cocktails at people taking part in a peaceful rally in downtown Boulder organized by the group Run For Your Lives to draw attention to the plight of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas militants from Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Prosecutors said Soliman also used a makeshift blowtorch fashioned from a commercial weed sprayer during his attack, in which he yelled “Free Palestine” as the gasoline bombs he lobbed at the crowd burst into flames.
PLANNED FOR A YEAR
Authorities identified a total of 29 victims, including 14 who were burned or injured while fleeing, and 15 others 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.
According to affidavits filed in court by prosecutors, Soliman told investigators after his arrest that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people” and had planned his attack for a year, though he delayed going through with it until after his daughter had graduated from high school.
According to prosecutors, he used Molotov cocktails instead of a gun because his non-citizen status blocked him from buying firearms.
The attack came amid heightened tensions in the United States over Israel’s war in Gaza, which spurred a surge in incidents of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hate and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that many supporters of Israel branded as antisemitic.
The violence in Boulder followed the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy aides outside Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum a month earlier.
According to a court filing by defense lawyers, Soliman offered to plead guilty in the federal hate-crimes case in return for a lifelong prison sentence, but the government has yet to decide whether to accept his proposal.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; additional reporting by Keith Koffman in Denver; Editing by David Gregorio and Bill Berkrot)
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