(ILLINOIS) — An Illinois man has been convicted of murder and hate crime charges in 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 indicted on multiple murder charges, as well as attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crime counts. He had pleaded not guilty.
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.
A Will County jury found Czuba guilty of all counts.
Jurors began deliberating around noon Friday, before reaching their verdict less than two hours later.
Wadee’s father, Odai Alfyoumi, thanked those who supported him in remarks following the verdict.
“I don’t know if I should be pleased or upset, if I should be crying or laughing,” he said through a translator during a press briefing with the Chicago division of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the U.S.’ largest Muslim civil rights organization.
“People are telling me to smile. Maybe if I were one of you, I would be smiling. But I’m the father of the child, and I’ve lost the child,” he said.
He also prayed that “this senseless loss is the last that we will see, that no child would suffer what my beloved had to go through.”
CAIR Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said they are pleased with the verdict, calling it a “very clear-cut case.”
“This is a case that shook up the Muslim community, the Palestinian community, and really Chicago and Illinois and the nation, maybe even the world at large,” Rehab said. “This is one of the worst hate crimes that have been committed in recent memory that targeted an innocent 6-year-old boy, a kindergartner, and his mother.”
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 Chicago ABC station 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.
They also watched body camera footage of the officers responding to the bloody scene and were shown the knife used in the attack, which an officer said was still in the boy’s body when they arrived. 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.
His defense attorneys told jurors at the start of the trial that there were holes in the state’s case and urged them to “go beyond the emotions to carefully examine the evidence,” according to the AP.
ABC News’ Cheryl Gendron contributed to this report.
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