The man accused of carrying out an antisemitic firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado, was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to 101 state charges, including first-degree murder.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman pleaded guilty to the charges, including one count of murder for the June 2025 death of 82-year-old Karen Diamond. In the assault, Soliman targeted a group participating in the Run for Their Lives at Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall last June.
The defendant carried 18 Molotov cocktails the day of the attack, but he threw only two of the devices while shouting, “Free Palestine,” as previously reported by the Deseret News.
The incident wounded more than a dozen others and heightened fears of rising antisemitic violence in the U.S., according to The New York Times.
District Attorney Michael Dougherty told the court the attack planted “terror, fear and death.”
During the Thursday hearing, victims testified about the lasting impact they endured following the attack, according to The New York Times.
Following their statements, Soliman spoke publicly for the first time. Through a translator, the Egyptian national, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2022, expressed regret and said he deserved the death penalty, according to The New York Times.
Soliman denied his actions were driven by antisemitism. He later described Zionism as “the enemy.”
Chief District Judge Nancy W. Salomone rejected that claim, saying Soliman’s “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,” Salomone told Soliman.
As Salomone read through each charge, the defendant responded “guilty” repeatedly. Because Colorado has abolished the death penalty, life in prison without parole is the state’s harshest possible sentence for the first-degree murder conviction, The New York Times reported.
He was also sentenced to 2,128 years in prison for the remaining charges he pleaded guilty to. Soliman could still face the death penalty in a federal prosecution involving 12 hate crime charges, according to CBS News. That trial is set to begin June 1 at the U.S. District Court in downtown Denver.
Soliman asserted that his now ex-wife and five children had no prior knowledge of the attack, according to CBS News.
His family was taken into federal custody following the June incident and held in a Texas immigration detention center before being released earlier this year, as previously reported by the Deseret News. His lawyers are currently fighting to prevent their deportation.