US man gets 53 years for fatally stabbing Palestinian-American child

An Illinois landlord who fatally stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy and severely wounded his mother has been sentenced to 53 years in prison.

Joseph Czuba, 73, was convicted in February for murder and hate crimes for the death of Wadee Alfayoumi, and the wounding of his mother Hanan Shaheen in 2023 shortly after the start of the Israel-Gaza war.

The family had been tenants in Czuba's home in Plainfield, roughly 64 km (40 miles) from Chicago. Prosecutors said he targeted them over their Muslim faith.

Czuba had pleaded not guilty, but jurors convicted him after deliberating for less than 90 minutes.

Wadee Alfayoumi's great uncle, Mahmoud Yousef, told the court on Friday that no sentence was going to "justify" the boy's death, according to NBC News.

"The day he was killed, his father had memories, had plans for his son," he continued, saying Czuba "had no right to take them".

Appearing in a red jail uniform, the thin and frail looking convict declined to speak on his own behalf.

The trial included testimony from Alfayoumi's mother, who described the encounter in harrowing detail, and from Czuba's now ex-wife, who said he had grown agitated by the war.

Hanan Shaheen testified during the trial that Czuba had told her "you, as a Muslim, must die", according to Reuters.

On the day of the attack, he forced his way into the home of the Alfayoumi family, who had been renting rooms from him and attacked them with a knife, prosecutors said.

He stabbed the mother over a dozen times, prosecutors said, then turned towards the boy and stabbed him 26 times.

Evidence during trial included graphic crime scene photos and police saying they found Czuba outside the house after the attack with his body and hands covered in blood.

The deadly attack received national attention and renewed concerns of Islamophobia, anti-Muslim discrimination, and anti-Palestinian prejudice.

The young boy had celebrated his sixth birthday just a few weeks before he was killed.

"He loved his family, his friends. He loved soccer, he loved basketball," the executive director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ahmed Rehab, said at the time.

Source: BBC