Victims of an antisemitic firebombing confronted the man who set many of them on fire with their memories of the attack and how their trauma affects them.
Again and again on Thursday, they talked about watching a woman burn alive while lying on the pavement as the man paced nearby, shouting about Palestinians.
That man, 46-year-old Egyptian immigrant Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was sentenced to life plus 2,178 years in prison in the June 1 attack on the Pearl Street Mall that killed 82-year-old Karen Diamond and burned 13 others.
Diamond died three weeks after the attack from third-degree burns.
“When I’m alone and close my eyes, I can vividly see Karen’s body in flames,” said marcher Orrie Gartner, who also described the smell of burnt flesh and singed hair.
Boulder County District Court Chief Judge Nancy W. Salomone said Soliman chose to victimize people who were peacefully gathering.
“You chose to victimize these people because they were members of the Jewish community,” she said.
Dougherty, during a news conference after the hearing, said Soliman deserves every day he will spend behind bars.“When his statement started, I thought we were actually going to hear contrition. Instead, in my perspective, we heard exactly why we are here today,” Dougherty said. “He still somehow in his brain thinks that his view, his faith, gives him some reason to carry this out.”
Andrew and Ethan Diamond, whose mother was killed, did not attend the hearing, noting the pain would be too great, in a joint statement Dougherty read before the court.
The brothers described their mother as a designer, a lover of music, a great host and a woman who shared a blissful life with her husband and fellow firebombing attack victim, Louis Diamond, who was also burned.
The couple, both in their 80s, had just run the Bolder Boulder the week prior. Diamond had many more years left, the brothers said, years that could have been spent reading, traveling, hiking and living her life to its natural end.
“Our father is bereft of his life partner,” the brothers said in the statement.
Andrew Chester, another victim, said he isn’t comfortable going out anymore and that he hides his Star of David necklace in public. He said he is always looking for exits wherever he goes, even in places as mundane as the grocery store.
“It is a loss of dignity and a loss of freedom that I once knew,” Chester said, describing the fear he feels while being Jewish in public since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
Many of the victims who spoke, some through tears, said the image of Diamond engulfed in flames is ingrained in their memories.
Jonathan Lev, the executive director of the Boulder Jewish Community Center, said his community was “shattered” by the attack, but still they leaned on each other.
“In the face of unimaginable terror, these survivors have shown us the true essence of courage and resistance,” Lev said during the press conference.
Soliman said that a hatred for Jews did not motivate the attack, and that his emotions over the treatment of Palestinians got the best of him. He repeatedly denigrated Israel and Zionism as evils in the world, likening Palestinians’ experiences to the Holocaust.
“This enemy is Zionism,” he said. “End Zionism before it ends you,” he said.
He apologized to everyone involved, including Diamond’s family and the 26 attempted murder victims.
Soliman said he wished he could get the death penalty for Diamond’s murder, which is not permitted under Colorado law. He faces a possible death penalty sentence for the federal hate crimes he is charged with and asked federal prosecutors to pursue it Thursday.
Dougherty asked the court to impose the maximum sentence in the state charges, calling the attack cowardly and describing Soliman as a monster. He showed images of burn scars scorched into the pavement where people were attacked.
“When he talks about setting these people on fire, he doesn’t shed a single tear,” Dougherty said, raising his voice and gesturing to the crowd. He pointed out that Soliman only seems to cry while talking about his own life and his family’s life in an audio recording of his interview with police.
The day of the attack, demonstrators from Run for Their Lives had gathered on the popular pedestrian mall for a weekly demonstration urging the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. It was Karen Diamond’s first walk with the group. Soliman saw the group’s weekly walks as an opportunity to take revenge because he believed they did not care about Palestinian hostages and supported the deaths of Palestinians, according to an affidavit.
The attack was initially planned to be a mass shooting, according to another arrest affidavit.
During his final statement, Soliman said he kept his plans from his family, knowing they were the only ones who could talk him out of it.
Earlier Thursday, Soliman individually pleaded guilty to 101 charges with 67 crime of violence enhancers. In addition to first-degree murder, the charges included attempted murder, assault and attempted assault, use or attempted use of explosive or incendiary devices and animal cruelty.
Soliman faces a in the attack. He pleaded not guilty in that case in June, but offered last year to plead guilty to those charges as well.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article used the wrong first name for one of Karen Diamond’s sons. It is Ethan.
