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The man suspected of attacking pro-Israel protesters in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this month has been charged with 12 federal hate crime counts, according to a newly unsealed indictment.
The Justice Department unsealed an indictment Wednesday against Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national living in the U.S. illegally.
Soliman was arrested after he was accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a group of Run for Their Lives demonstrators marching to bring awareness to the remaining hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, according to federal prosecutors.
The indictment claims the protesters had been carrying Israeli and American flags and flyers showing some of the hostages.
They had stopped in a park in front of the Boulder County Courthouse when Soliman, wearing a hazard vest and carrying a backpack weed sprayer containing “flammable liquid,” threw two Molotov cocktails at the crowd, prosecutors claim.
The Justice Department says Soliman had at least 18 glass bottles and jars containing a “flammable liquid.”
As he was throwing one of the Molotov cocktails, Soliman yelled, “Free Palestine!” according to the indictment.
Investigators said they found a handwritten note in his car that read: “Zionism is our enemies untill [sic] Jerusalem is liberated and they are expelled from our land.”
During a police interview, Soliman said he wanted to take his “revenge” on Zionists and that he searched the internet for “any Zionist event” and found the Run for Their Lives walk, the indictment claims.
Soliman said, according to prosecutors, that he hoped he had “burned [sic] them all. I killed [sic] them all. This was my dream.”
No one died in the Boulder attack, but 15 people were injured, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.
Barbara Steinmetz told NBC News that the attack “has nothing to do with the Holocaust, it has to do with a human being that wants to burn other people."
"It's about what the hell is going on in our country," Steinmetz added. "What the hell is going on?"
Soliman is also facing 118 state charges in Colorado, including attempted murder.
