A Colorado man has been charged with a federal hate crime for his alleged role in a bomb attack on a pro-Israeli rally in Boulder that injured twelve people, according to an affidavit issued by the US Department of Justice.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman was already facing an array of state charges, including attempted murder, after the attack on Sunday in the city of Boulder on a group seeking to draw attention to hostages seized in Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said the suspect would be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law for what was described as an “antisemitic terror attack”.
The affidavit said Soliman, 45, had planned the attack for more than a year. Investigators found 14 Molotov cocktails filled with petrol or gasoline near where the suspect was detained.
The police also found a petrol canister in his car parked nearby and a weed sprayer filled with petrol at the scene. Soliman told investigators that he had learned how to make the firebombs from YouTube.
The affidavit references a video posted on social media during the attack showing Soliman “shirtless, pacing back and forth while holding what appear to be Molotov cocktails”.
The suspect, who was being detained in lieu of $10m bail, according to official records, told police he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead”, the affidavit said.
The burst of violence at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder, unfolded against the backdrop of Israel’s war on Gaza that continues to inflame global tensions and has contributed to a spike in anti-Semitic violence in the United States.
The attack happened at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which is marked with the reading of the Torah and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
‘Millions of individuals like this’
According to the complaint, Soliman lived with his wife and five children in Colorado Springs, a city about 161km (100 miles) south of Boulder. The affidavit says that he waited until after his daughter’s graduation to conduct the attack.
Few other details were available about him.
Todd Lyons, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Soliman had overstayed a tourist visa and had an expired work permit.
Federal documents make no reference to his nationality, but the New York Times said he was Egyptian, citing the Department of Homeland Security.
The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice did not respond to requests for comment. The Denver office of the FBI, which is handling the case, did not immediately respond to emails or phone calls seeking details in the case.
Officials from the Boulder County Jail, Boulder Police and Boulder County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to inquiries.
“There are millions of individuals like this that we are attempting to locate from the past administration that weren’t properly screened that were allowed in,” Lyons said during a press conference in Boston. “I will tell you that’s a huge effort for ICE right now.”
Under former US President Joe Biden, ICE prioritised arrests of serious criminals and called for officers to consider humanitarian factors when making arrests.
Lyons declined to provide more information, but a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson previously said Soliman had entered the country in August 2022 and filed for asylum the following month. “The suspect, Mohamed Soliman, is illegally in our country,” the spokesperson said.
President Donald Trump criticised Biden over the incident.
“Yesterday’s horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the United States of America,” Trump said on his Truth Social network, describing it as a “terrible tragedy”.
He blamed “Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy” for allowing Soliman into the country.
“This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland,” he wrote.
Four women and four men between 52 and 88 years of age were transported to hospitals after the attack, Boulder police said. Another four victims were identified on Monday, according to authorities.
The attack took place on the Pearl Street Mall, a popular pedestrian shopping district near the University of Colorado, during an event organised by Run for Their Lives, a group devoted to drawing attention to the hostages seized in the aftermath of Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel.
Rabbi Yisroel Wilhelm, the Chabad director at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told CBS Colorado that the 88-year-old victim was a Holocaust refugee who fled Europe.
Sunday’s attack was not the first high-profile incident of mass violence in Boulder, a university town that attracts many young professionals and outdoor enthusiasts. In 2021, a gunman fatally shot 10 people, including an off-duty police officer, in a local supermarket.
