Mohamed Sabry Soliman Gets Life Prison Sentence in Boulder

Mohamed Sabry Soliman was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the Boulder firebombing attack, closing the state-court punishment phase after he pleaded guilty to the Colorado case. The attack killed one person and injured a dozen others during a June 2025 demonstration in Boulder supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Soliman said through an interpreter that he was not asking for leniency and told the court, "There are no words that can express my sadness for her passing." He also said, "If I went back, I would not have done this as this is not according to the teaching of Islam" and "What I did came out of myself and only myself."

Boulder District Court

The sentence followed Soliman’s guilty plea in state court to the 2025 firebombing attack. Prosecutors said the attack left one person dead and a dozen others wounded, including an 82-year-old woman who later died after being injured. Soliman threw two of more than two dozen molotov cocktails he had with him while yelling, "Free Palestine!" Investigators allege he planned the attack for a year and intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration on Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall.

Diamond’s sons described their mother’s death in a statement read earlier in court by a prosecutor, saying Soliman was responsible for their mother never seeing her family again and describing her final days as marked by "indescribable pain," a "living hell," and a "fate worse than death."

Federal Hate Crime Case

The state sentence does not end the case. Soliman has pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges over the same attack, and federal prosecutors are weighing whether to seek the death penalty. They allege the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual connection to Israel, while Soliman’s defense lawyers argue he should not have faced hate crime charges because he says he was motivated by opposition to Zionism. Under federal law, an attack motivated by political views is not considered a hate crime.

Soliman moved to the United States from Kuwait in 2022 with his wife and their five children and lived in Colorado Springs, 97 miles (156km) from Boulder. His federal case remains open while prosecutors decide whether to pursue the death penalty, leaving the next major step in the courtroom with the federal charge rather than the sentence already imposed in state court.