The wife of accused Boulder, Colorado attacker and illegal Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman released her first public statement pleading for the American people’s help after a Texas US District Court judge on Wednesday ruled the family will be allowed to remain in the country pending deportation efforts.
Soliman, 45, is accused of injuring more than a dozen people after throwing Molotov cocktails into a crowd of peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators, while yelling, “Free Palestine.”
Following the attack, federal authorities detained Soliman’s wife, Hayem El Gamal, and five children, who lived about two hours away in Colorado Springs.
A Colorado judge ruled last week that since El Gamal and the children were removed by federal officials and sent to Texas, any judicial relief had to come from a judge with jurisdiction.
US District Court Judge Orlando Garcia, in San Antonio, issued a 14-day extension of the previously issued order prohibiting the family’s deportation.
Following Garcia’s decision, El Gamal, through an attorney, released her first public statement regarding the case.
“My five children and I are in total shock over what they sa[w] my husband d[o] in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month,” El Gamal wrote. “So many lives were ruined on that day. There is never an excuse for hurting innocent people. We have been cooperating with the authorities, who are trying their best to get to the bottom of this. We send our love to the many families who are suffering as a result of the attack.”
She explained the aftermath of the attack from her perspective, detailing a late-night flight and stay at an immigration jail in Texas.
“This includes my two four-year-old children, my seven-year-old, my fifteen-year-old, and my oldest daughter, who just turned eighteen in jail,” she wrote. “We are grieving, and we are suffering. We are treated like animals by the officers, who told us we are being punished for what my husband is accused of doing. But why punish me? Why punish my four-year-old children? Why punish any of us, who did nothing wrong?”
Since coming to America three years ago, El Gamal claimed the family “tried to do everything right,” obtaining work permits, learning English and teaching the US’s official language to other immigrants.
“We have always tried to be good neighbors, cooking food for those around us regardless of whether they are Muslim, Christian or Jewish,” she wrote. “I do not judge anyone based on his religion. If your heart is good, that’s enough.”
The reference to neighbors practicing other religions comes weeks after Fox News Digital interviewed an observant Jewish family who recently moved into the same neighborhood as the suspect’s family.
In the days following the attack, David and Rivkah Costello described the horror of finding out that their neighbor had been charged in connection to the alleged hate crime.
As the couple unpacked boxes, they said El Gamal showed up at their door, adorned with a mezuzah, offering cupcakes to welcome them to the neighborhood.
“All I want is to give my children good lives,” El Gamal continued in statement. “My oldest daughter volunteered at a hospital; she has a 4.5 GPA and wants to become a doctor, to help people in this country. My kids want to go to school, they want to see their friends and deal with their grief from recent weeks. But here they can’t sleep. They cry throughout the day, asking me, ‘When will we get to go home?’”
She claimed when they were first detained, her children were “forced” to watch officials “rough-up” another detainee, adding they lacked privacy and decent meals.
“Only mothers can truly understand what we are going through,” El Gamal wrote. “I did everything for my kids. It has been two weeks in jail, how much longer will we be here for something we didn’t do? How much longer until the damage to my children is irreversible? It has been so hard for me to stay strong for my kids. I’m so tired. I ask the American people, with all my heart, to please listen to our story and help us.”
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