The US justice department on Thursday charged the lone suspect in a brazen attack that killed two young Israeli embassy staff members outside the Jewish museum in downtown Washington DC with murder of foreign officials and other crimes.
Court documents released on Thursday charged Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, with the Wednesday night killings that left the US capital in shock and were condemned by world leaders as “horrible” and “antisemitic”. According to the filing, the suspect told police after his arrest: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday afternoon, Jeanine Pirro, the interim US attorney for Washington, described the slate of charges against the defendant – which also include two counts of first-degree murder, causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence – as an “initial” list of crimes. The killing, she said, was also being investigated as a “hate crime and a crime of terrorism”.
“We will add additional charges as the evidence warrants,” she said.
Rodriguez made his first court appearance on Thursday afternoon, hours after federal agents in tactical gear descended on his Chicago apartment. According to a post on X from the FBI’s Washington field office, agents in Chicago were “conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity” that it said was “in relation to yesterday’s tragic shooting in Washington, DC”.
The FBI director, Kash Patel, described the slaying as an “act of terror” and “targeted anti-Semitic violence”. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said: “We are doing everything we can to protect our entire community, and especially our Jewish community right now.”
At Rodriguez’s arraignment in federal court on Thursday, magistrate judge Matthew Sharbaugh told the defendant that he faced the possibility of the death penalty as punishment if found guilty of the crimes he is charged with. Pirro said it was “far too early” to say whether prosecutors would seek capital punishment but added that it was a “death penalty-eligible case”.
At the White House, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Donald Trump was “saddened and outraged” by the deadly act and vowed that the US Department of Justice “will be prosecuting the perpetrator of this to the full extent of the law”. She said Trump spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.
The killings occurred shortly after 9pm on Wednesday evening, outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where, according to officials, a gunman approached a group leaving an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee and opened fire at close range.
The victims, identified as Yaron Lischinsky, who grew up in Germany and Israel, and Sarah Milgrim, a US citizen from Kansas, were a young couple about to be engaged, according to Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the US. Leiter told reporters Lischinsky had “purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem”.
Visitors lay flowers and light candles at a memorial service in front of the Israeli embassy in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday. Photograph: Bernd von Jutrczenka/AP The suspect was observed pacing outside the museum before the shooting, the Metropolitan police chief, Pamela Smith, said. After opening fire, he walked into the museum, was detained by event security and began to chant, “Free, free Palestine,” she said.
Officials have said the suspect was not on any security watchlists and there were no heightened security threats before the shooting. The firearm believed to be used in the killings was retrieved, officials said. The New York Times reported that the gun had been purchased lawfully in Illinois and had been transported legally to Washington DC.
Asked at Thursday’s press conference whether the suspect targeted the event or the individuals, Steve Jensen, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, replied: “We’re not saying at this time.” He said law enforcement officers were still investigating the circumstances of the suspect’s travel to DC, which they believe was work-related, as well as how the alleged gunman learned the location of the event at the museum on Wednesday night, which was private and not publicized.
The FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino, said the suspect was interviewed by authorities within hours of being taken into custody. Officials were aware of “certain writings” possibly authored by the suspect that have been circulated online, he wrote in a post on X, adding: “We hope to have updates as to the authenticity very soon.”
The flags at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world were lowered to half mast, and Netanyahu ordered security to be stepped up following what he called “the horrifying antisemitic murder”.
The attack comes as Israel expanded its ground offensive in Gaza, and faces growing international pressure, including from the US, to end its nearly three-month long blockade of food, medicine and other supplies that humanitarian groups say has pushed the enclave to the brink of famine.
“When antisemitism is normalized, that’s where we start to see the real danger that results in the violence we saw last night,” Ted Deutch, a former Florida congressman and the chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, which had put on the reception for young diplomats on Wednesday night, said in an interview on MSNBC.
In a social media post early on Thursday, Trump wrote: “These horrible DC killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli foreign minister, blamed critics of the Israeli government, including the “leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe” for inciting violence and hatred against his country since the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October 2023.
France on Thursday denounced Sa’ar’s comments as “unjustified” and “outrageous”. “France has condemned, France condemns and France will continue to condemn, always and unequivocally, any act of antisemitism,” the foreign ministry spokesperson, Christophe Lemoine, said.
International criticism of Israel over the Gaza war has risen in recent weeks. On Tuesday, in an unprecedented, joint statement with Canada and the UK, France condemned “the appalling language” of members of Netanyahu’s government, and the “outrageous actions” and the “intolerable level of suffering” of civilians.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) condemned the deadly attack as “completely unacceptable” and said that political violence “only undermines the pursuit of justice”.
Tributes poured in for the victims of the attack from the US and overseas as those who knew Lischinsky and Milgrim described the couple as “bright” and “talented”.
Lischinsky, 30, who worked as a research assistant in the political department of the Israeli embassy in Washington, was born in Nuremberg, according to the Israeli ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor. “He was a Christian, a true lover of Israel, served in the IDF, and chose to dedicate his life to the State of Israel and the Zionist cause,” he wrote on X.
Milgrim, 26, an American from Kansas, organized trips to Israel, according to a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry, officials said. She was also a volunteer with Tech2Peace, an advocacy group training young Palestinians and Israelis and promoting dialogue between them, according to the organization.
KU Hillel, a Jewish student organization at her alma mater, the University of Kansas, described Milgrim as a “bright spirit” whose “passion for the Jewish community touched everyone fortunate enough to know her”.
Lischinsky was preparing to propose to Milgrim when they traveled to Jerusalem next week to meet his family, according to officials. Lischinsky had purchased an engagement ring, which Miligram’s family only learned of only after the shooting.
“The ironic part is that we were worried for our daughter’s safety in Israel,” her father, Robert Milgrim, told the New York Times in an interview. “But she was murdered three days before going.”