The man who killed a woman and injured more than a dozen others while they were marching for the release of Israeli hostages in Boulder last year is set to change his plea on federal hate-crime charges later this month in an apparent agreement with prosecutors.
Attorneys for Mohamed Sabry Soliman told a federal judge in a filing Friday that Soliman wanted to change his plea on the 12 federal charges he still faces; nine of them are hate-crime charges. His attorneys also moved to drop Soliman’s legal efforts to keep his family from being deported from the United States.
U.S. District Court Judge John L. Kane agreed to drop that motion and set a hearing for Soliman’s plea change for Oct. 29. The filings do not include details about the apparent agreement, first reported by the Colorado Sun.
In May, Soliman pleaded guilty to more than 180 state-level charges in connection with the attack and was sentenced to life in prison.
During a June 2025 march seeking the release of hostages held by Hamas, prosecutors say that Soliman dressed as a gardener and, wielding Molotov cocktails and a weed sprayer filled with gasoline, he fatally burned one marcher, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, and injured more than a dozen others.
He attacked the group, part of Boulder’s chapter of Run for Their Lives, outside of the county’s historic courthouse on the Pearl Street Mall.
Soliman had planned the attack for more than a year, prosecutors said. He had initially planned to shoot his victims but switched to firebombs after he was unable to buy a gun.
Last year, Soliman offered to plead guilty to federal hate-crime charges and be sentenced to life in prison. Federal prosecutors did not act on that offer because they were considering pursuing the death penalty against Soliman.
An Egyptian, Soliman came to the U.S. in 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023. He had sought political asylum and lived with his family in Colorado Springs. He received a work permit and permission to stay in the U.S. while his asylum application was pending.
After Soliman’s arrest, federal officials moved to detain and deport his wife and children. Soliman’s attorneys had sought to block their removal, arguing the family could serve as key witnesses in his case.
Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.
Source: www.denverpost.com
