The suspect in the Boulder firebombing was charged with 118 criminal counts in a Colorado courtroom Thursday as an attorney for his wife called for the family's release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, an Egyptian national who entered the country legally in 2022, was charged with 28 counts of attempted murder in connection with 14 of the victims, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty told reporters after a hearing Thursday afternoon.
One of the attempted murder charges alleges extreme indifference, he said. The other alleges deliberation.
Soliman was also charged with first-degree assault, including against an at-risk victim older than 70, use of an incendiary device and animal cruelty for a dog that was injured in the attack, Dougherty said.
Soliman could face more than 600 years in prison on the attempted murder charges alone, he said.
"The charges reflect the evidence we have regarding the horrific attack that took place and the seriousness of it, he said.
Soliman is accused of using a "makeshift flamethrower" and Molotov cocktails on a group of people peacefully calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The attack injured at least 15 people, ages 25 to 88, and a dog, prosecutors said in an update Wednesday.
Separately, Soliman was charged Monday with a federal hate crime.
The White House announced Tuesday that Soliman's wife and five children had been taken into ICE custody "for expedited removal." Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on X that the department was investigating "to what extent" Soliman’s family knew about the attack or supported it.
A federal judge issued an order Wednesday preventing the deportation of the woman and the children. They have not been charged in connection with the attack.
Asked about possible charges against Soliman's family, Dougherty said his office "will certainly look into it" if authorities learn that people had knowledge or information about the crime or sought to assist or encourage the defendant.
"We have no information to share on that," he said.
Soliman entered the country on a B2 visa, typically issued to tourists, in August 2022. The following month, he filed for asylum with his family as dependents, according to the Department of Homeland Security and court documents. While his visa expired in February 2023, Soliman had not yet exhausted all legal options to stay in the United States.
An attorney for Soliman’s wife, Hayam El Gamal, told NBC News that she and her children are at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas.
"There is no precedent in the history of the United States for the type of collective family-based punishment that the Trump administration is doling out on this family," said the attorney, Eric Lee.
“It’s extremely dangerous, and it’s something that should concern every single person that’s watching,” he added.
"You can imagine the shock that they were in when they learned the charges that were being brought against their father or husband, and then suddenly to find themselves being whisked away in the dark of night, out of their home state of Colorado, to a new place in a detention center, huddled together without really any idea about whether they were going to be sent to a country from which they had applied for the right to asylum," Lee continued.
Lee said two of the five children are 4 years old and the others are 8, 15 and 17. He said the government had mistakenly said the oldest child is 18.
He said he has sought habeas corpus relief to protect the family from being removed but hasn’t had the opportunity to speak to them in depth, as calls were cut off twice after a few minutes Wednesday.
"One could only imagine what this family is going through," he said. "They’ve done absolutely nothing wrong."
