U.S. Immigration Authorities Detain Family Of Man Charged In Boulder, Colorado, Attack

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — The wife and five children of an Egyptian man accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at people in Boulder demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages, injuring 12 of them, was taken into custody Tuesday by U.S. immigration officials who are investigating whether they knew about his plan.

The family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and could be deported as early as Tuesday night, the White House said in a post on X.

Soliman, who was disguised as a gardener, had 18 Molotov cocktails and had planned to kill all of the roughly 20 participants in Sunday’s demonstration in downtown Boulder but apparently had second thoughts and threw just two while yelling “Free Palestine,” police said. Soliman, who federal authorities say has been living in the U.S. illegally, didn’t carry out his full plan “because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before,” police wrote in an affidavit.

The two incendiary devices he threw were enough to injure more than half of the participants in the weekly demonstration, authorities said, noting that he expressed no remorse about the attack.

“When he was interviewed about the attack, he said he wanted them all to die, he had no regrets, and he would go back and do it again,” Colorado’s acting U.S. attorney, J. Bishop Grewell, said during a news conference Monday.

Soliman told authorities that no one, including his family, knew about his plans, according to court documents.

He targeted what he described as a “Zionist group,” authorities said in court papers, at times spelling his first name “Mohammed.”

“He stated that he had been planning the attack for a year and was waiting until after his daughter graduated to conduct the attack,” the affidavit says.

Soliman left an iPhone hidden in a desk drawer at his Colorado Springs home that contained messages to his family, according to an FBI affidavit. After his arrest, his wife brought the phone to the local police department, saying it was his but was also used by other members of the family.

According to the affidavit, Soliman also told the police he was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people” — a reference to the movement to establish and protect a Jewish state in Israel.

Soliman was born in el-Motamedia, an Egyptian farming village in the Nile Delta province of Gharbia, to a school teacher who was widely respected in the area, according an Egyptian security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media. The village is about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Cairo.

Soliman was a handball player with Cairo’s Zamalek club, Mortada Mansour, the club’s former chairman, wrote on Facebook.

Before moving to Colorado Springs three years ago, he spent 17 years in Kuwait, according to court documents.

He has been living in the U.S. illegally, having arrived in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a post on X. She said Soliman filed for asylum in September 2022 and was granted a work authorization in March 2023, but that it also expired. The immigration status of his wife and children is not clear, and DHS did not respond to requests for additional information.

Hundreds of thousands of people overstay their visas each year in the United States. There were 565,155 visa overstays from October 2022 through September 2023 among visitors who arrived by plane or ship — more than the population of the Reno, Nevada, or Chattanooga, Tennessee, metropolitan areas, according to the Homeland Security Department’s most recent annual report.

The total number of overstays is much larger but has not been quantified because it doesn’t include how many people arrive and leave by land. The cost and technological hurdles to develop a checkout system at congested land crossings are enormous.

The overstay rate for Egyptians on business or tourist visas was 4%, below some of biggest offenders such as Chad (49%), Laos (34%) and Sudan (26%)

Federal and state prosecutors filed separate criminal cases against Soliman, charging him with a hate crime and attempted murder, respectively. He faces additional state charges related to the incendiary devices, and more charges are possible in federal court, where the Justice Department will seek a grand jury indictment.

Soliman is being held on a $10 million bond. His attorney, Kathryn Herold, declined to comment Monday after a hearing where he appeared before a state judge. His next hearing is Thursday.

The attack at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder unfolded against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which continues to inflame global tensions and has contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States. The attack happened at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington.

The victims ranged in age from 52 to 88, and their injuries spanned from serious to minor, officials said. They were members of the volunteer group called Run For Their Lives who were holding their weekly demonstration.

Six victims were initially taken to a hospital. Three remained Tuesday at the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, spokesperson Kelli Christensen said. She declined to provide information on their conditions and said they requested privacy.

One of the victims was a child when her family fled the Nazis during the Holocaust, said Ginger Delgado, of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, who is acting as a spokesperson for the family of the woman, who doesn’t want her name used.

Video of the attack captured by witness Alex Osante of San Diego shows people pouring water on a woman lying on the ground who Osante said had caught fire.

Osante said that after the assailant threw the two incendiary devices, apparently catching fire himself as he threw the second, he took off his shirt and what appeared to be a bulletproof vest before police arrived. In the video, the man can be seen dropping to the ground and being arrested without any apparent resistance.

The Molotov cocktails were made up of glass wine carafe bottles or jars with clear liquid and red rags hanging out of the them, the FBI said.

He had gas in a backpack sprayer but told investigators he didn’t spray it on anyone but himself “because he had planned on dying.”

Soliman also told investigators that he took a concealed-carry class and tried to buy a gun but was denied because he isn’t a U.S. citizen.

Authorities said they believe Soliman acted alone. Although they did not elaborate on the nature of his injuries, a booking photo showed him with a large bandage over one ear.

Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker in Washington, Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.