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.
