Washington (AFP) – An Illinois man was sentenced to 53 years in prison on Friday for the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy in an attack deemed an anti-Muslim hate crime linked to the Israel-Hamas war. Joseph Czuba, 73, was convicted in February of fatally stabbing Wadea Al-Fayoumi and attacking the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen. Czuba was the family’s landlord, and the attack took place a week after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. Wadea was stabbed 26 times, and a serrated military knife with a 15-cm (six-inch) blade was removed from the child’s abdomen during the autopsy.
Shaheen and Czuba’s now ex-wife, Mary, testified that he targeted the Muslim family after becoming agitated about the conflict in Gaza, media reported. Prosecutors said Shaheen called police in 2023 after Czuba forced his way into her bedroom and stabbed her repeatedly. She was able to lock herself in a bathroom to call for help, during which time Czuba attacked her child. “The cruelty of this morally reprehensible killer and the impact of his violent conduct on this innocent child and mother is truly unfathomable,” prosecutor James Glasgow said in a statement.
Jurors deliberated for just over an hour before finding Czuba guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and two counts of a hate crime. Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak sentenced Czuba to 30 years in prison for Wadea’s murder, 20 years for the attack on his mother, and three years for the hate crimes, to be served consecutively, the Chicago Sun Times reported. During sentencing, the boy’s great-uncle Mahmoud Yousef asked Czuba why he did it but received no response, the newspaper said. “We want to know what made him do this,” Yousef told the judge.
According to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, the victims were targeted “due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.” Joe Biden, then the US president, condemned the attack as a “horrific act of hate” that “has no place in America.”
© 2024 AFP
