A Colorado district court on Thursday sentenced Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman to life in prison with no chance of parole after he was convicted of murder in an attack on a march in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip last year.
Soliman, 46, attacked participants at a pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder with Molotov cocktails he had prepared and a homemade flamethrower — a garden sprayer filled with gasoline — killing 82-year-old Karen Diamond. He wounded 12 others, including 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Barbara Bendler Steinmetz.
Footage of the scene in Colorado following the attack
(Video: Betar USA)
Authorities initially said eight people had been wounded in the attack. Police later said they had learned of four additional people who were lightly injured and sought medical treatment on their own rather than being evacuated from the scene.
Soliman, an Egyptian national, had lived in Colorado Springs since 2022, when he entered the United States on a tourist visa. That year, he applied for asylum and, according to immigration officials, later received work authorization. He had worked as an Uber driver since 2023. Despite his unresolved immigration status, he passed a full criminal background check, and no passenger complaints had ever been filed against him.
Soliman admitted carrying out the attack and was convicted on all 101 counts against him, including the murder of Diamond, attempted murder, assault and animal cruelty after a dog was wounded during the march.
However, court documents filed by his attorneys said Soliman denied committing an antisemitic hate crime, arguing that he was motivated by political opposition to Zionism and not Judaism. Under U.S. federal law, an attack motivated by political views is not recognized as a hate crime.
During the hearing, Soliman was given the chance to speak through an interpreter for nearly half an hour, offering apologies to the victims and condolences for Diamond's death. "There are no words that can express my sadness for her passing," Soliman said, adding that a death sentence would “be the justice for Ms. Diamond.”
He expressed remorse for the deadly attack, decrying his own crimes as contrary to "the teachings of Islam," but launched into a rambling diatribe, describing Zionism as “the enemy,” and condemning the deaths of children in the war in Gaza.
“Yes, I am against Israel, and I can’t deny that. And that’s my right,” he said from the defendant’s stand.
Soliman also sought to distance his wife, Hayam El Gamal, and five children from the attack, saying that had they known of his plans, they would have tried to stop him. His wife and children were arrested shortly after the attack and placed in expedited removal proceedings from the United States. They were released earlier this year after spending months in a Texas detention facility. Soliman’s attorneys had petitioned against their deportation.
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 revealed he would plead guilty in a Sunday court filing in a related federal case.
Soliman's federal attorneys have said in court filings the attack "was profoundly inconsistent" with Soliman's prior conduct and "came as a total shock to his family."
At the time of the attack, Soliman had been living with his family in a two-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs, about 97 miles (156 kilometers) away. The couple divorced in April.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman threw Molotov cocktails in the Boulder, Colorado attack
(Photo: from X)
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!"
Police said he told them he got scared because he had never hurt anyone before.
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.
FBI investigators said in a court affidavit filed before the hearing that Soliman had planned the attack for a year and was motivated by a desire to “kill all Zionist people.”
Chief District Judge Nancy Salomone rejected his claims, telling him that his “choices were acts of terror, and they victimized an entire community.”
“You chose to victimize these people because they were members of the Jewish community,” she told him.
The scene of the attack
(Photo: Betar USA)
Salomone went through each count and read the names of each victim to confirm Soliman’s admissions. He answered “guilty” in Arabic after each count and waived his right to appeal.
The sentence of life without parole is the harshest penalty available in Colorado, where the death penalty has been abolished.
While Soliman had pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges for the attack, prosecutors are weighing whether to seek the death penalty in a federal case, according to his attorneys.
Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty said during the hearing that Soliman’s attack sowed “terror, fear and death.”
“They were completely defenseless,” Dougherty said.
Many victims and their relatives told the court of the physical and emotional pain they have endured since the attack. Some described fleeing as Molotov cocktails exploded around them and being forced to put out flames on their own clothing or on the clothes of friends.
Orrie Gartner, one of the march participants, said that when he closes his eyes, he still “can vividly see Karen’s body in flames.”
Other survivors said they were “haunted by memories of the screams and the flames, the stench of gasoline and burned hair.” Some said they look for emergency exits wherever they go. Others testified that since the attack, they have hidden Jewish symbols and Star of David necklaces for fear of being targeted.
Diamond’s sons, Ethan and Andrew, also gave statements to the court. In a letter read at the hearing, they wrote that they had learned “the full meaning of the expression ‘Living Hell’ and 'fate worse than death.'"
Their father, 84-year-old Lou Diamond, was also wounded in the attack and suffered severe burns. He was hospitalized for several months.
The sons said their parents had lived full and active lives before the attack and had even participated together in the Bolder Boulder 10-kilometer race. They traveled, went to concerts together and had been planning a trip to France. “Now, none of those things will happen,” they wrote.
In another statement read by a prosecutor, a physician who was a victim of the attack described the helplessness of seeing Diamond suffering and knowing that she would not survive.
Boulder Mayor Pro Tem Tara Winer said the victims included some of her close friends.
"It was a horrific attack," Winer said by email this week. "Their lives were changed forever."