A United States man has been sentenced to 53 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy, after being found guilty of hate crime charges and murder.Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak announced the sentence on Friday in the case of 73-year-old Illinois landlord Joseph Czuba.
On October 14, 2023, just days after the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, Czuba attacked two of his tenants, Hanan Shaheen and her young son Wadee Alfayoumi.
Police say Czuba arrived at their door angry about the war and proceeded to force his way inside, strangling Shaheen and holding her down before pulling out a military-style knife.
Shaheen suffered more than a dozen stab wounds before escaping to a bathroom to call 911 for help. Alfayoumi, meanwhile, was stabbed 26 times. He did not survive.
Czuba’s trial featured audio from Shaheen’s panicked 911 call, as well as testimony from the mother herself. Speaking from the witness stand in English and Arabic, she described Czuba becoming increasingly paranoid and Islamophobic as the war progressed. Advertisement
For nearly two years before the attack, the family had rented a pair of bedrooms in Czuba’s house in Plainville, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
But after the war began on October 7, Shaheen recalled Czuba telling her to move out of her lodgings because Muslims were not welcome.
Then, during the attack, she once again heard him citing her Muslim faith. “He …
