A jury on Friday condemned a landlord of Illinois in a stabbing from 2023 who claimed the life of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy, Wadee Alfayoumi, and left his mother seriously injured.
Joseph Czuba, 73, was emotionless after he was found guilty of three counts of murder in the first degree, one count of attempted murder, two counts of worsened battery and two counts of committing a hate crime, Fox 32 Chicago reported.
The mother of Alfayoumi, Hanaan Shahin, said the police that Czuba was upset about Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel and the subsequent war and her and her son on October 14, after she asked him to “pray for peace.”
The father of Wadee Alfayoumi, Oday Alfayoumi, Right, and his Uncle, Mahmoud Yousef, attended a wake for WADEE in the Prairie Activity and Recreation Center in Plainfield, ill., 17 October 2023. (AP Photo/NAM Y. Huh, File)
She was stabbed several times.
The war started only a week prior to the attack, on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked South Israel.
Prosecutors claimed that Czuba stabbed his tenants of two years because they were Palestinian Americans, Fox 32 reported.
In a video shown in court on Thursday, Czuba spoke with an officer about the attack in a police car.
“I was afraid they would do jihad with me,” said Czuba.
Oday Alfayoumi and others wear the box of his son, Wadee Alfayoumi, at Parkholm Cemetery in La Grange Park, ill., October 16, 2023. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Images were also taken prisoner of Czuba and said that Shahin did not tell him that she was a Muslim and compare the Palestinian liberation organization with Nazis, According to the report.
Although there were no earlier problems with Shahin and her son, Czuba’s wife testified that he was withdrawn and angry after he had viewed the reporting about the Hamas attack and asked the family to move, Fox 32 reported.
According to the report, Shahin told court that Czuba said, “You, like a Muslim, should die,” while he attacked her with the knife.
She locked herself in the bathroom and called 911, then heard her son screaming in another room, according to Fox 32.
Protesters participate in the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine March in Chicago on August 21, 2024. (Fox News Digital)
The 15 -minute phone call was played in courtAnd Shahin said her son shouted in the background.
Prosecutors said blood and DNA certificate was found on the knife, which, according to the report in the boy’s body, was left behind.
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State rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, D-Bridgeview, the first Palestinian American who served in the state legislator, has issued a statement describing the case as ‘entrails’.
“My heart is going to the family of Wadee Alfayoumi today,” said Rashid. “The jury was right to find Joseph Czuba guilty about all charges, including murder and hate crimes.”
FOX 32 Chicago and the Associated Press have contributed to this report.
