Federal Judge Halts Deportation of Boulder Firebombing Suspect’s Family

‘The court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm,’ the judge wrote in an order.

A federal judge on June 4 issued an order to prevent the deportation of family members of a man charged in the firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado.

Judge Gordon Gallagher of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado granted a request from the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman to block their deportation proceedings, after immigration authorities took them into custody.

The government “shall not remove” Soliman’s wife and five children from Colorado “unless or until this Court or the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit vacates this order,” Gallagher wrote in his order.

“Moreover, the Court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must [be] issue[d] without notice due to the urgency this situation presents,” the order reads.

Soliman, a 45-year-old citizen of Egypt, was charged with a federal hate crime following the June 1 incendiary attack at a gathering to express solidarity with those taken hostage from Israel by the terrorist group Hamas. Boulder County officials said in the most recent update, on June 4, that eight women and seven men, ranging in age from 25 to 88, suffered injuries.

Investigators allege that Soliman shouted “Free Palestine” before throwing Molotov cocktails into the crowd, and that he had planned the attack for more than a year, waiting until after his daughter’s graduation to carry it out. They also recovered at least 14 unused Molotov cocktails and a backpack sprayer, believed to have been modified as a makeshift flamethrower.

In addition to the federal hate crime charge, Soliman faces dozens of state-level charges that include 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, as well as multiple charges of first-degree assault, possession of an incendiary device, and attempted possession of an incendiary device. The murder charges alone could lead to 384 years of prison time if he is convicted of all of them.

Soliman’s wife and five children have not been charged with any crimes. However, on June 3, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that they had been taken into federal custody.

“We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” Noem wrote in a post on social media platform X.

By Bill Pan

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