Authorities said on Saturday that an Illinois man who was given a 53-year jail sentence for the 2023 hate crime that rocked the country—the murder of a young Palestinian American boy—had passed away in prison.
According to a statement from the Will County Sheriff’s Office, Joseph Czuba, 73, passed away on Thursday while completing his sentence. His cause of death was not disclosed by officials.
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Days after Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Czuba was found guilty in February of first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery, and hate crimes for fatally stabbing 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and severely wounding the boy’s mother.
According to authorities, Czuba singled out the boy’s family because they were Muslim and because of the continuing conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East. In Czuba’s house in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield Township, the mother and boy shared a leased room.
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According to police, Czuba attacked Hanan Shaheen, the boy’s mother, gravely wounding her with 12 knife wounds after stabbing the young boy 26 times.
Czuba pleaded not guilty and was given a 53-year prison sentence for killing Wadee and assaulting Shaheen.
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Shaheen, who immigrated to the United States from the West Bank as a youngster about 15 years ago, testified that Czuba informed her that your people were murdering Jews in the days prior to the stabbings. She added that Czuba insisted on her and her son leaving his house.
She stated that during the approximately two years that she and her son shared a living room and kitchen with Czuba and his then-wife, they had never had any problems with Czuba.
She testified that on the day of the attacks, Czuba stormed into her room, restrained her, and stabbed her over a dozen times. She claimed that at one time, Czuba attempted to break her teeth by sticking his fingers in her mouth. Shaheen claimed that during the meeting, she tugged at Czuba’s hair as he yelled, “You must die!”
Shaheen said that her kid stood in the room’s corner, watching the incident with terror.
I’ll look after you, Wadee, Czuba assured the tiny child. He stabbed his mother, and Shaheen said, “I’ll raise you, and don’t tell people I killed your mom.”
Shaheen claimed that as she heard Czuba knife her son, she fled to the restroom and dialed 911.
A recording of the 911 call that was aired during the trial shows that she repeatedly told the dispatcher, “He is killing my baby.”
A request for comment from Shaheen’s lawyer was not immediately answered.
On Saturday, the boy’s father expressed his lack of happiness about Czuba’s passing.
My son has left. In his first public remarks, Oday Al Fayoume stated, “The justice is that I need my son back.” For me, this is the only justice. No one is able to provide me with it.
After completing only five months of a 53-year sentence, he said Czuba got off easy. “He killed my son,” Al Fayoume said, adding that Czuba’s actions might give more people the confidence to target Palestinians in the United States.
At a time when tensions between the nation’s Muslim and Jewish communities were rising in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, Wadee’s murder shocked the country and sparked widespread outrage.
In speeches denouncing the murder, then-President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said that America cannot tolerate this heinous act of hatred.
According to him, the child’s Palestinian Muslim family came to America in search of what we all want: a safe haven where they could live, study, and pray.
In a statement released on Saturday, Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Chicago office, noted that although this terrible murderer is no longer with us, hatred endures.
