Illinois landlord who stabbed 6-year-old Palestinian boy found guilty of murder, hate crime
A jury found Illinois landlord Joseph M. Czuba guilty of murder in the stabbing death of Wadee Alfayoumi. Czuba went after the 6-year-old Palestinian boy in an anti-Muslim fueled rage.
CHICAGO – A jury on Friday found an Illinois landlord who stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy dozens of times guilty of murder and committing a hate crime, according to local reports.
Joseph M. Czuba, a property owner in Will County outside Chicago, shocked the country when he went after a family of Palestinian tenants in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Czuba killed Wadee Alfayoumi and seriously wounded his mother, Hanaan Shaheen, in what a jury decided was a crime fueled by hate for Muslims.
The jury also found Czuba, 73, guilty of attempted murder of Shaheen and multiple counts of aggravated battery and committing a hate crime, according to reporting by the Chicago Tribune. He faces life in prison without parole. Sentencing is scheduled for May.
“We’re overwhelmed with thanks to the jury and the court and the prosecutor who helped put Joseph Czuba where he belongs,” Johnny Simon an attorney for Wadee’s family told Paste BN. “The jury that sent this unanimous verdict delivered the message that we needed to hear in our country which is that hate-driven violence against minorities will not stand.”
Czuba's attack on the family came just a week after the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 in Israel. Will County deputies found Wadee and his mother with severe stab wounds inside a bedroom she rented from Czuba in a suburb about 40 miles outside Chicago on Oct. 14, 2023. Wadee had been stabbed 26 times with a military-style knife, authorities said. He died from the injuries in a hospital shortly after the attack.
The attack represents the worst of the spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hate incidents following Oct. 7. Tens of thousands have been killed in Gaza since Israel's attacks on the coastal enclave began. A fragile truce holds between the two sides as Hamas swaps hostages for Palestinian prisoners. But the fate of the ceasefire’s next stage, which aims to end the war, is unclear.
Mixed emotions from the family
Wadee’s father, Odai Alfayoumi, told local media through a translator that he was thankful justice will be served with the verdict but that he had mixed emotions.
“I don’t know if I should be pleased or upset, if I should be crying or laughing,” Alfayoumi said, according to the Tribune. “People are telling me to smile. Maybe if I were one of you I would be smiling, but I’m the father of a child and I have lost the child, and I feel like this decision came too little too late.”
A lawyer for Alfayoumi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Simon, who represents Shaheen, said she had no comment.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C.,-based Muslim civil rights group, celebrated the verdict while adding it will not bring "Wadee back to life."
“The misinformation and dehumanization of the Palestinians by our political leaders and the media led to the brutal murder of little Wadee and the injuring of his mother," the organization wrote. "Islamophobia kills."
‘No place in a civilized society’
Simon described Czuba’s opinions on Muslims and the way he justified his attack as “just shocking stuff that has no place in a civilized society.”
Czuba’s hateful words include saying that Muslims had no place in his home and describing them as “infested rats,” according to Simon.
Prosecutors allege that Czuba’s violent outburst came as a result of listening to anti-Muslim speech on conservative talk radio. Simon said a next step in the case lawyers are examining is whether the pundits Czuba followed bear any legal responsibility as well as possibly those who heard his racist comments and did nothing.
“Anyone who knew about that played a part in this,” Simon said. “What this shows is that the things people say, words and rhetoric matter. We need to be accountable for what we say because it has a real effect on people.”
A hate-fueled attack
Shaheen survived more than a dozen stab wounds. She told authorities the attack began shortly after Czuba angrily confronted her about the Israel-Hamas war and she proposed that they “pray for peace,” according to court documents. When Czuba attacked with a knife, she locked herself in a bathroom, but Wadee was in the bedroom and she was not able to get him.
Deputies found Wadee unresponsive "lying on a bed on his back shirtless with multiple stab wounds to the chest and what appeared to be a knife" inserted into his abdomen, according to the documents.
Officers found Czuba in the backyard with a cut on his forehead and a knife holster on his belt and several pocketknives next to his feet.
Czuba’s wife told investigators her husband feared they would be attacked by people of Middle Eastern descent. Before the attack, Czuba’s wife said he told her he wanted Shaheen and Wadee to move out, saying he believed Shaheen would call over “Palestinian friends or family to harm them.”
Wadee's death quickly garnered national attention. Former President Joe Biden denounced the stabbings a day after they occurred and marked the one-year anniversary of the boy’s death this past October.
Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland launched a federal hate crime investigation into the attack. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution to honor Wadee.
Michael Loria is a national reporter on the Paste BN breaking news desk. Contact him at mloria@usatoday.com, @mchael_mchael or on Signal at (202) 290-4585.