Justice Department charges Colorado man with hate crime for Boulder attack

The Justice Department on Wednesday charged the suspect in a Boulder terror attack with committing hate crimes, after he allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at participants attending a vigil for Israeli hostages in Gaza earlier this month.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspect, previously faced 118 charges related to the attack, which injured at least 15 people. Among the previous charges were 56 crime-of-violence counts, 28 first-degree-attempted-murder counts, and an assortment of counts related to assault and the use of incendiary devices, all of which were brought by the state of Colorado. There had previously been one federal hate crime charge. 

It is not clear how many hate crimes Soliman has been charged with, but it comes after prosecutors claimed he planned the attack over the course of a year and was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people," per CNN.

Soliman's defense attorneys argue he targeted the group for political reasons and not because any of the members were Jewish, and thereby did not commit a hate crime under federal law.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.