Anti-Israel activist killed two Israeli embassy staffers before yelling ‘Free, Free Palestine,’ police say
The Department of Justice will pursue the death penalty against Elias Rodriguez, who is accused of murdering Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside a Jewish history museum in Washington, D.C., according to a report.
“The indictment against Elias Rodriguez is expected to include special findings for capital punishment, where the Justice Department indicates it can pursue the death penalty,” CNN reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
In addition to the death penalty, prosecutors will seek federal hate crime charges against Rodriguez in a grand jury indictment this week, sources told CNN.
Rodriguez, an anti-Israel activist, has remained in custody since May 21, when he allegedly murdered Lischinsky and Milgrim in cold blood as the couple left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. He kept firing at Milgrim as she lay wounded on the ground, then shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” after killing both victims, according to police.
A day after the shooting, prosecutors charged Rodriguez with first-degree murder, murdering foreign officials, and firearm offenses. He has not yet entered a formal plea in court.
Anti-Semitic incidents have surged in the United States since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has cracked down on anti-Semitism by revoking visas of foreign nationals linked to anti-Semitic activity and withholding billions in federal funding from universities that fail to protect Jewish students on campus.
Just days after the D.C. museum shooting, another anti-Semitic attack occurred in Boulder, Colorado. Mohamed Soliman, a 45-year-old illegal immigrant from Egypt, hurled Molotov cocktails and used a makeshift flamethrower on peaceful demonstrators, killing an 82-year-old woman and injuring multiple victims, including a Holocaust survivor.
“We refuse to accept a world in which Jewish Americans are targeted for who they are and what they believe,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said following the Boulder terrorist attack, while Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon vowed that her division “will act swiftly and decisively to bring the perpetrators of such crimes to justice.”
