The Department of Justice formally filed one federal hate crime charge Friday against a man suspected of injuring 15 people in a firebombing attack on the Pearl Street Mall Sunday.
"This vile anti-Semitic violence comes just weeks after the horrific murder of two young Jewish Americans in Washington D.C.,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement. “We will never tolerate this kind of hatred. We refuse to accept a world in which Jewish Americans are targeted for who they are and what they believe."
In the original federal complaint filed June 1, an agent categorized the attack as a hate crime because the suspect appeared to target the group based on their “race, religion or national origin” by “throwing Molotov cocktails into a pro-Israel crowd while yelling ‘Free Palestine’”.
Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, will be represented by public defenders David Kraut and Jennifer Beck as the case moves through federal court. He was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Friday afternoon and will appear June 18 for his federal preliminary hearing.
Police say the suspect used a makeshift flamethrower and threw incendiary devices at people participating in a weekly Run for Their Lives demonstration on the Pearl Street Mall. Multiple people caught on fire, 15 were injured, and three remain hospitalized, authorities say.
