Family of Boulder firebombing suspect detained again days after judge ordered release
The family of Mohamed Soliman, the suspect in an alleged terrorist attack in Boulder last June, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement again, just days after their release from an ICE facility in Texas.
A judge issued an order to federal immigration officials to immediately release Soliman's ex-wife, Hayam El Gamal, as well as 18-year-old Habiba Soliman and the 4 minor children earlier this week. They were freed from the ICE facility in Dilley, Texas, on Thursday afternoon.
A condition of their release included electronic monitoring requirements and periodic reporting to immigration authorities.
After leaving Texas, the family checked in at the East Caley Avenue ICE Facility in Centennial as per the requirement, where the family's lawyers say they were detained yet again. The lawyers say the family was taken to an airport, presumably for removal. The family's attorneys are working on emergency motions to stop the action.
One of the family's lawyers, Niels Frenzen, said the family was taken in violation of the federal court order and called the move a "kidnapping."
"The family arrived home in Colorado this morning. Hours later, ICE arrested them all and has put them on a plane headed for Detroit's Willow Run Airport, and then outside the United States to an unknown location," said Frenzen. "The children are 5,5.9,16 and 18 years old. The mother has suffered health emergencies, and her life is in danger. Counsel for the El Gamal family have filed emergency motions in the Western District of Texas and the Fifth Circuit, as well as a new petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District of Colorado."
Mohamed Soliman is facing dozens of charges, including first-degree murder and federal hate crime charges, for the attack on the Pearl Street Mall. He is accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a group of people marching in support of Israeli hostages, killing one person and injuring many others.
The family was arrested by immigration officials shortly after the attack. In a hearing ordered by a federal judge, an FBI agent testified in court that he believed the family did not know about Soliman's plans.
Protesters gathered on Saturday to call for the family's release.
Lacey Goodwin, one of the people who helped drive the family back from Texas, said, "This family has done everything right that we have asked them to do, and they have been thrown around in the entire system. Listening to their stories of what it was like in the detention center was unbelievable; the targeting they were doing, even to the 5-year-old."
Kristin Gutzman, an advocate for the family, said that less than an hour after the family was dropped off at the facility, the group that brought them was informed the family had been detained and deported.
On Saturday afternoon, a U.S. district judge in Texas ordered that the family's removal from the United States and from Colorado be stayed.
CBS Colorado has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment, but, as of the time of this story's publishing, has not yet received a response.
