(CHICAGO) — An Illinois man has been sentenced to 53 years in prison for the 2023 fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy.
Wadee Alfayoumi was stabbed 26 times and his mother more than a dozen in the Oct. 14, 2023, attack inside their home in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield.
Their landlord, 73-year-old Joseph Czuba, was convicted in February on multiple murder charges, as well as attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crime counts. A Will County jury found Czuba guilty of all counts after deliberating for less than two hours.
Prior to the sentencing on Friday in Joliet, the judge denied a motion from the defense team to overturn the jury verdict that claimed he did not receive a fair trial, Chicago ABC station WLS reported.
The defense has filed a motion to reconsider the sentencing, with a court appearance scheduled for May 7, WLS reported.
Czuba faced a mandatory prison sentence of 20 to 60 years up to a possible life sentence.
Authorities said he targeted his tenants because they were Muslim and in response to the war between Israel and Hamas that had just ignited after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Wadee’s great uncle, Mahmoud Yousef, addressed the sentencing outside the courthouse, telling reporters, “It doesn’t matter what numbers are. He took a life from us. He took a future.”
The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said it welcomed the sentence.
“No sentence can restore what was taken, but today’s outcome delivers a necessary measure of justice,” Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of CAIR-Chicago, said in a statement. “Wadee was an innocent child. He was targeted because of who he was — Muslim, Palestinian, and loved. Our work now is to ensure that no other child suffers from the deadly consequences of hate.”
The child’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, was the first to take the stand in the weeklong trial.
She said Czuba attacked her first with a knife, stabbing her multiple times, saying, “You devil Muslim, you must die,” as her son watched, according to WLS, which was in the courtroom.
She testified that she called 911 from the bathroom when he appeared to leave, but then she started to hear her son screaming, according to WLS.
“I started hearing my son screaming, screaming, screaming, ‘Oh no, stop,"” Shaheen said, according to WLS.
Jurors also listened to the mother’s 911 call from the bathroom, in which she was heard telling the dispatcher, “He’s killing my baby,” WLS reported.
Jurors additionally heard remarks Czuba made in a law enforcement vehicle following the attack.
“I thought they were going to do jihad on me,” Czuba said, according to WLS.
He also said he was “afraid for my life” and his wife and said the family was “just like infested rats,” according to WLS.
Czuba and his wife rented part of their Plainfield home to the mother and son for two years.
His now-ex-wife testified for prosecutors that Czuba became withdrawn in the days after the war and wanted the family to move out immediately, while she wanted to give them 30 days’ notice, according to The Associated Press.
Czuba did not take the stand, waiving his right to testify.
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