Prosecutors have filed additional charges, including first-degree murder, against firebombing suspect
An 82-year-old Jewish woman who suffered severe injuries during an anti-Semitic firebombing attack early June in Boulder, Colo., has died, prompting prosecutors to file first-degree murder and more hate crime charges on Monday against suspect Mohamed Soliman.
Karen Diamond died after Soliman, a 45-year-old illegal immigrant from Egypt, attacked her and 28 other peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators on June 1 using Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement, according to the Colorado Sun.
Colorado prosecutors in the statement announced two new first-degree murder charges against Soliman, who is facing more than 100 other state charges, including 52 counts of attempted first-degree murder, 8 counts of first-degree assault, and 16 counts of attempted use of an incendiary device. Soliman is also facing 12 federal charges, to which he pleaded not guilty during a hearing on Friday.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Soliman will serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Each attempted murder charge carries a penalty of 16 to 48 years in prison, according to 9News.
Anti-Semitic incidents have surged in the United States following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. Just weeks before the Boulder attack, anti-Israel terrorist Elias Rodriguez murdered two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, as the couple were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
President Donald Trump has cracked down on rising anti-Semitism by revoking visas of foreign nationals linked to anti-Semitic activity and withholding billions in federal funding from universities that fail to protect Jewish students on campus.
Soliman told police after his arrest that he had planned the attack for a year, saying that he “wanted to kill all Zionist people” and “would do it again.”
Before carrying out the attack, Soliman filmed himself declaring that he loves “jihad for Allah’s sake” more than his mother, wife, and children. “I say to my mother, my wife, my children, my brothers, my people: I attest before Allah and before you that Allah, his messenger, and jihad for Allah’s sake are more beloved to me than you and the whole world are,” Soliman said.
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