Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the Egyptian man arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails at attendees of a Boulder, Colorado, march Sunday in support of Israel hostages still in Gaza, was officially charged with committing a federal hate crime on Monday.
According to an F.B.I. affidavit, Soliman told investigators in a post-arrest interview that he had been planning his anti-Israel attack for a year and that he was driven to “kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.” Soliman is expected to appear in court at 1:30 p.m. local time in Boulder.
While throwing two Molotov cocktails at the Sunday demonstration’s marchers, Soliman reportedly yelled, “Free Palestine!” Following his arrest, law enforcement officials found a container owned by Soliman filled with 14 more unlit Molotov cocktails. Eight people, four men and four women, suffered burns and other injuries from Soliman’s terror attack and were hospitalized.
On X, Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, announced that Soliman had entered the United States in August 2022 with a temporary visa. He filed for asylum in the U.S. a month later, but ultimately overstayed his visa, which expired in February 2023.
“The Colorado Terrorist attack suspect, Mohamed Soliman, is illegally in our country,” McLaughlin wrote in a tweet published early Monday.
Soliman was identified by witnesses as the assailant and was subsequently taken into custody in the Boulder County Jail and initially booked with multiple felony charges. His attack comes not even two weeks after two Israeli Embassy aides were shot and killed outside of the Lillian & Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
In April, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family also survived an arson attack on their home that occurred just hours after Passover Seder.
Soliman’s attack is just the latest event to stem from the ongoing — and growing — international fallout of the Israel-Hamas war that has been raging since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
