Colorado firebomb suspect to plead guilty to all state charges, defence says

DENVER – The man accused of lobbing petrol bombs at a pro-Israel rally in Colorado in 2025, killing one person and injuring about two dozen others, will plead guilty later this week to all 184 charges he faces in state court, according to his lawyers.

The disclosure surfaced in an emergency petition filed on May 3 by attorneys for the fire-bombing suspect, Mohamed Soliman, 46, an Egyptian national, as part of a separate federal hate-crimes case pending against him.

The motion seeks a US District Court order to prevent six of his immediate family members – his former wife and five children – from being deported, at least until federal prosecutors decide whether to pursue the death penalty against him in their case.

Removing them from the country, the defence argued, would deprive their client of his constitutional right to present his loved ones as mitigating character witnesses in a capital murder trial.

According to that motion, Soliman offered to plead guilty in the federal case in return for a lifelong prison sentence, but the government has yet to decide whether to accept his proposal.

In the state case, defence attorneys wrote, Soliman “will plead guilty to all charges” on May 7 under a plea agreement in which the Boulder County District Court will “impose a prison sentence of life without parole, plus at least 400 years”.

Hearing set for May 7

Soliman’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on May 4. A spokesperson for the Boulder County district attorney declined to comment. However, an online court docket for the Soliman case showed that a “filing of charges hearing” was scheduled for May 7.

Soliman is currently charged with 184 offences stemming from the June 1, 2025, attack, including multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, assault and criminal use of explosives and incendiary devices.

According to both prosecution and defence accounts in court records, Soliman tossed two Molotov cocktails at a group of people taking part in a peaceful rally in downtown Boulder organised to draw attention to the plight of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas militants from Gaza on Oct 7, 2023.

Prosecutors said Soliman also used a makeshift blowtorch fashioned from a commercial weed sprayer during his attack, during which he yelled “Free Palestine” as the petrol bombs he lobbed at the crowd burst into flames.

The authorities identified a total of 29 victims, including some who were burned or injured while fleeing or close enough to be considered targets of attempted murder, according to the Denver Post. One victim, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, died of her injuries later that month.

According to affidavits filed in court by prosecutors, Soliman told investigators after his arrest that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people” and had planned his attack for a year, though he delayed going through with it until after his daughter had graduated from high school.

Soliman’s family were taken into immigration custody in June 2025, following Soliman’s arrest and were transported to a detention facility in Texas, where they were held until their court-ordered release on April 23, more than 10 months later.

The five children and their mother were re-arrested on April 25, hours after they had flown back to Colorado. They were then put on a plane bound for Michigan and ultimately headed for deportation when attorneys intervened, leading immigration officials to return them to Denver and release them once more on April 26, Soliman’s defence team said in its emergency motion.

The family’s fate since then was not immediately known. A spokesperson for the US Attorney for Colorado declined to comment on the status of the federal case. REUTERS