Suspect charged with federal hate crime in attack on Colorado rally for Israeli hostages

Yahoo

2 days ago

A man has been charged with a federal hate crime and multiple other felonies after he allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary devices to attack a crowd of people who were raising awareness for Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 12 victims.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, is alleged to have shouted 'Free Palestine' as he attacked the crowd on Sunday. The FBI said Soliman told police he planned the attack for a year and had specifically targeted what he described as the 'Zionist group', the Associated Press reported.
At a press conference on Monday the Boulder county district attorney said Soliman would be prosecuted for a federal hate crime and 16 counts of attempted murder. If convicted, he would be jailed for the rest of his life, with a cumulative of more than 600 years.
At the press conference, US attorney for the district of Colorado said in a statement that Soliman had resorted to molotov cocktails when he wasn't able to obtain a gun. There were at least 16 unused molotov cocktails recovered from the scene, according to the US attorney's office, district of Colorado.
An FBI affidavit said Soliman – upon confessing to Sunday's attack after his arrest – told the police he would do it again.
Officials said there was no indication that the attack was associated with any group. NBC reported Soliman was an Egyptian national, and the White House claimed Soliman was in the US without legal status.
Four women and four men between 52 and 88 years old, including a woman that a Department of Justice official said was a survivor of the Holocaust, were transported to hospitals, Boulder police said, with injuries ranging from minor to 'very serious'. Four additional victims had minor injuries but were not hospitalized.
The attack took place on the Pearl Street Mall, close to the University of Colorado, during an event organized by Run for Their Lives, a group which aims to draw attention to the people taken hostage following Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel.
Soliman is alleged to have thrown a device into a group of people who had assembled in a pedestrianized zone for the peaceful rally. The Boulder police chief, Stephen Redfearn, said the department received calls at about 1.26pm local time on Sunday of a man with a weapon near a downtown courthouse and that people were being set on fire.
Brooke Coffman, a 19-year-old University of Colorado student, told Reuters she saw four women lying or sitting on the ground with burns on their legs. One of them appeared to have been badly burned on most of her body and had been wrapped in a flag by someone, Coffman said.
She said she saw a man whom she presumed to be the attacker holding a glass bottle of clear liquid and shouting.
'Everybody is yelling: 'Get water, get water,'' Coffman said.
Alex Osante, from San Diego, told the Associated Press he was having lunch on a restaurant patio across the pedestrian mall when he heard the crash of a bottle breaking on the ground, a 'boom' sound followed by people yelling and screaming.
In a video of the scene filmed by Osante, people could be seen pouring water on a woman lying on the ground who Osante said had been burned during the attack.
After the initial attack, Osante said the suspect went behind some bushes and then re-emerged and threw a molotov cocktail but appeared to accidentally set himself on fire as he threw it. The man then took off his shirt and what appeared to be a bulletproof vest before the police arrived. The man dropped to the ground and was arrested without any apparent resistance in the video that Osante filmed.
The justice department said one of the victims was a Holocaust survivor.
'She endured the worst evil in human history. She came to America seeking safety,' said Leo Terrell, a senior counsel on civil rights in the justice department. 'This is all caused by the same type of hatred: antisemitism.' Terrell, who leads the Trump administration's antisemitism taskforce, was criticized in March after he shared a post by a white supremacist.
Mark Michalek, the FBI special agent in charge of the Denver field office, identified Soliman as the lone suspect.
'It is clear that this is a targeted act of violence and the FBI is investigating this as an act of terrorism,' Michalek told a press conference, citing witnesses.
Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, described the incident as a 'targeted terror attack', and Colorado's attorney general, Phil Weiser, said it appeared to be 'a hate crime given the group that was targeted'.
Soliman is due to appear in court at 1.30pm local time on Monday, according to Boulder county jail records. He is being held on a $10m bond. Law enforcement officials said Soliman was also injured and was taken to the hospital to be treated, but did not elaborate on the nature of his injuries.
On his Truth Social platform Monday, Donald Trump said the attack 'will not be tolerated in the United States of America'. The US president also said acts of terrorism 'will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law'.
In a post on X, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, described Soliman as an 'illegal alien' who had overstayed his tourist visa. Miller criticized Joe Biden's presidential administration, whom he said had given Soliman a work permit.
CNN, citing law enforcement officials, reported that Soliman arrived in the US in August 2022 as a non-immigrant visitor. It reported that the officials said he was granted a work authorization in March 2023, which expired at the end of March this year, more than two months into Trump's presidency.
Soliman had previously applied for asylum in the US, CNN reported. He was denied a visa to enter the country in 2005.
Miller said the attack was further evidence of the need to 'fully reverse' what he described as 'suicidal migration'.
In his Truth post, Trump linked Soliman's presence in the US to 'Biden's ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our country so badly'.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said Soliman was 'illegally in our country'.
'He entered the country in August 2022 on a B2 visa that expired on February 2023. He filed for asylum in September 2022,' McLaughlin said.
The attack comes amid heightened tensions over Israel's war on Gaza, which in the US has spurred both an increase in both antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes.
It follows the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington DC who had attended an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that fights antisemitism and supports Israel.
Conservative supporters of Israel have branded pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic, and Donald Trump's administration has detained several protesters of the war without charge, while cutting off funding to elite US universities where protests against Israel's war on Gaza have taken place.
Hamas launched an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people. It is still holding 58 hostages in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be still alive. Israel responded to the attack by launching a bombing campaign on Gaza which has killed more than 54,000 people.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement that the Colorado victims were attacked 'simply because they were Jews' and that he trusted US authorities would prosecute 'the cold blood perpetrator to the fullest extent of the law'.