Boulder Firebomb Attacker Pleads Guilty to 12 Federal Hate Crimes

Mohamed Soliman, the man who firebombed a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, in June 2025, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to a dozen hate crime charges, adding a federal conviction to the state sentence he is already serving.

Soliman appeared at the Arraj Courthouse in Denver for a change-of-plea hearing at 10 a.m. The judge found him competent to plead guilty to every count. He had pleaded not guilty to the federal charges on June 27, 2025, shortly after the attack. Prosecutors say Soliman threw two Molotov cocktails at a group taking part in a weekly demonstration on the Pearl Street Mall. One person was killed and more than a dozen others were injured.

The group, Run for Their Lives, had marched through downtown Boulder every Sunday for more than a year in support of Israeli captives held by Hamas, and ended each gathering at the historic Boulder County Courthouse. The woman who died, Karen Sorin Diamond, succumbed to injuries she suffered in the attack.

Soliman had already pleaded guilty in May of this year to more than 100 state charges, including first-degree murder. The state judge sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole for the murder conviction, plus 2,128 years in prison for the other counts. The federal charges add a separate finding: that he chose his targets because of their religion or national origin.

"Here is why the federal case is important in addition to the state case: The federal case holds Mohamed Soliman responsible for the hateful ideology that drove his violent acts in June 2025 in Boulder, Colorado," said U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado Peter McNeilly. "He has pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes, which accounts for the fact that he was motivated by the fact that he thought these people were Jewish and Israeli, and that is why he did violence that day."

The federal judge has not decided on a sentence. He said the sentencing guidelines are only a guide and he may not follow them. Prosecutors and Soliman's defense team have requested a sentence of life in prison plus 50 years. Sentencing is set for 10 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2027.

The Anti-Defamation League's Mountain States office welcomed the plea. "The attacker in last year's Boulder, Colorado, firebombing pleaded guilty today to federal hate crime charges, admitting that he targeted people because of their religion or national origin," said Regional Director Susan Rona. "That admission, made in a federal courtroom, confirms what the facts already showed: This was an antisemitic attack. He planned this act of terror for over a year and targeted people simply because they were Jewish."

Rona added that "no legal outcome can bring back Karen Sorin Diamond, who died from injuries she suffered in the attack, or undo the trauma the attacker inflicted on the other survivors and the Boulder Jewish community," calling the plea "an important step toward justice." Because Soliman has already received a sentence that will keep him in prison for life, the federal case is largely symbolic in practical terms, but prosecutors said it matters because it formally records the hate motive behind the attack.