By admin 
A man who killed one person and injured a dozen more in a firebombing attack on demonstrators showing support for Israeli hostages in Gaza was sentenced Thursday to life in prison plus over 2,000 more years immediately after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and dozens of other state charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman said he wished he could get the death penalty under Colorado law and asked federal authorities to seek capital punishment against him in the related hate crime case pending against him in federal court.
“The court finds your choices were acts of terror and they victimized an entire community and they made everyone in it feel unsafe,” Boulder County District Judge Nancy Salomone said in handing down the sentence of life in prison without parole plus 2,128 years. Soliman pleaded guilty to 101 counts which took the judge nearly an hour to read.
The attack rattled the Jewish community and made some afraid to attend large events or wear Star of David pendants. Several victims told Salomone that the image of Karen Diamond, 82, being burned, while people tried to put out the flames, lingered in their memory. One said the smell of gasoline brings him back to the day of the attack.
Soliman, 46, apologized for his actions, which he said he would not go back and repeat, and expressed sympathy for the victims who spoke in court, addressing them by name. But he rejected the idea that he hated Jewish people and said instead that he was against Zionism, calling it an “enemy.”
“End Zionism before it ends you,” said Soliman, speaking in Arabic. His comments were translated in court by an interpreter.
Soliman, dressed in an orange and white striped jail uniform, also questioned how those who survived the Holocaust could allow children to suffer in Palestine and Gaza, prompting one of his federal defense lawyers sitting nearby to jump up and try to get his attention but Soliman continued to talk.
Rachelle Halpern, one of 26 people Soliman pleaded guilty to trying to kill by throwing two Molotov cocktails at the crowd on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall in June while yelling “Free Palestine!” said after the hearing that Soliman’s comments were “unworthy of a comment.”
Soliman never threw 16 other Molotov cocktails that he brought to the demonstration, dressing as a gardener to blend in. He allegedly told police he got scared because he had never hurt anyone before.
Diamond, who was active in Boulder’s Jewish community and civic organizations, was severely injured and later died of her injuries.
Diamond’s sons said in a statement read by Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty that their mother, who ran the Bolder Boulder race days before the attack, suffered for three weeks after being burned since burn victims can only receive limited pain medication. Still she showed kindness and love in her final days, sharing stories and recipes with her family, as her husband, who was also injured, was treated in the adjoining room at the hospital, they said.
Read more Are funeral pyres legal in Colorado?
Their father is “bereft” living alone in the house they built together. “Our parents’ suffering is an utterly senseless tragedy,” they said.
A dog named Jackson was also burned and later died.
In a statement, the Boulder Jewish Community Center commended the sentence and thanked the prosecutors and police involved in the case, as well as the first responders who tended to the victims.
“This guilty plea and sentencing do not erase our pain. But it matters,” said the statement, which was signed by 30 people, including at least six victims. “It tells our community that acts of hate-fueled terror and antisemitic violence will not be tolerated and will be met with significant consequences.”
The details of the plea and sentence were previously disclosed in a document requesting that Soliman’s now ex-wife and the couple’s five children not be deported so they could provide possible testimony to prevent Soliman from being sentenced to death on separate federal charges against him.
Several victims and Soliman expressed regret for how the attack upended the lives of his family.
Hayam El Gamal and the children, ages 5 to 18, were arrested shortly after the Boulder attack. The family, which has denied knowing anything about the attack, were held in immigration detention in Texas for nearly 10 months before being released last month. They were arrested again after returning to Colorado and put on a plane, according to their attorneys, and then released again after the lawyers went to court to block their deportation.
Federal authorities have said Soliman, an Egyptian national, had been living in the United States illegally at the time of the attack.
The family came to the United States in 2022 from Kuwait, where the children were born, with tourist visas and applied for asylum after settling in Colorado Springs, Soliman’s federal lawyers said in the court document. The family had been told they could remain in the U.S. while their application was considered, according to Soliman’s lawyers.
Soliman has pleaded not guilty to 12 hate crime counts in federal court. Federal prosecutors allege the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual connection to Israel. But Soliman’s federal defense lawyers say he should not have been charged with hate crimes because the evidence shows he was motivated by opposition to Zionism, the political movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.
Soliman’s defense lawyers say he has offered to also plead guilty in the federal case and be sentenced to life in prison but the government hasn’t decided whether to accept his offer because it is still considering whether to pursue the death penalty against him.
Read more Nearly half of Coloradans experiencing food insecurity don’t qualify for SNAP