An Illinois landlord who killed a six-year-old Muslim boy and severely injured his mom in a vicious hate-crime assault days after the conflict in Gaza started was sentenced on Friday to 53 years in jail.
Joseph Czuba, 73, was discovered responsible in February of homicide, tried homicide and hate-crime costs within the dying of Wadee Alfayoumi and the wounding of his mom, Hanan Shaheen.
Czuba focused them in October 2023 due to their Islamic religion and as a response to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Palestinian American household was renting rooms from Czuba at a suburban Chicago home on the time of the assault.
Proof at trial included harrowing testimony from Shaheen and her frantic 911 name, together with bloody crime scene pictures and police video. Jurors deliberated for lower than 90 minutes on Friday earlier than handing in a verdict. Illinois doesn’t have the dying penalty.
The household had been renting rooms in Czuba’s residence in Plainfield, about 40 miles (65km) from Chicago. Central to prosecutors’ case was harrowing testimony from the boy’s mom, who mentioned Czuba attacked her earlier than shifting on to her son, insisting they needed to depart as a result of they have been Muslim. Prosecutors additionally performed the 911 name and confirmed police footage. Czuba’s spouse, Mary, whom he has since divorced, additionally testified for the prosecution, saying he had grow to be agitated in regards to the Israel-Hamas conflict, which had erupted days earlier.
Police mentioned Czuba pulled a knife from a holder on a belt and stabbed the boy 26 occasions, leaving the knife within the baby’s physique. A few of the bloody crime scene pictures have been so express that the choose agreed to show tv screens displaying them away from the viewers, which included Wadee’s kinfolk.
“He couldn’t escape,” Michael Fitzgerald, a Will county assistant state’s legal professional, had informed jurors at trial.
The assault renewed fears of anti-Muslim discrimination and hit notably arduous in Plainfield and surrounding suburbs, which have a big and established Palestinian group.
Individually, lawsuits have been filed over the boy’s dying and the US Division of Justice has launched a federal hate-crimes investigation.
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