A man from Illinois who was sentenced to 53 years in prison for the murder of a young American Palestinian boy in a crime of hatred in 2023 who shocked the nation died in prison, the authorities announced on Saturday.
Joseph Czuba, 73, died on Thursday as he purges his sentence, said the Sheriff’s Bureau of Will in a press release. Officials did not release his cause of death.
In February, the Czuba was sentenced From first degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated drums and hate crimes for having fatally stabbed Wadee Alfayoumi, 6, and injuring the boy’s mother a few days after Hamas, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel and the launch of the military campaign of Israel in Gaza.
The authorities said the Czuba targeted the boy’s family “because they are Muslim and the in progress in the Middle East involving Hamas and the Israelis”. The mother and the son lived in a rented room at Czuba’s home in the canton of Plainfield, a suburb of Chicago.
The Czuba stabbed the young boy at 26 times and attacked the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, leaving her seriously injured with 12 stabs, according to officials.
The Czuba was sentenced 53 years in prison For having killed Wadee and attacked Shaheen, after pleading not guilty.
Shaheen, who moved to the United States from the West Bank in adolescence almost 15 years ago, testified that concerning stabs, the Czuba told him that “your people” kills the Jewish people. The Czuba also demanded that she and her son come out of her house, she said.
She added that she and her son had no preliminary problem with the Czuba during the two years they lived in the house, where she and her son shared a kitchen and a living room with the Czuba and her wife then.
On attack day, she testified that Czuba burst into her room, held her and stabbed her over a dozen times. She said the Czuba put her fingers in her mouth at some point and tried to break her teeth. Throughout the meeting, Shaheen said that she had shot Czuba’s hair while he was screaming: “You have to die!”
His son was standing in the corner of the room and looked at the meeting with fear, Shaheen Testfied.
The Czuba told the young boy: “Wadee, I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to raise you “and” don’t tell people I killed your mom “, when he stabbed his mother, said Shaheen.
Shaheen said that she then escaped the toilet and called 911 when she could hear the Czuba stab her son.
“He kills my baby,” she said on several occasions to the distributor, according to a recording of the 911 call played during the trial.
A Shaheen lawyer did not immediately return a request for comments.
The murder of Wadee amazed the nation and attracted national condemnation at a time when tensions in the Muslim and Jewish communities of the country intensified after the attacks of October 7.
The president of the time, Joe Biden, and the vice-president Kamala Harris published declarations condemning the murder, saying that “this horrible act of hatred has no place in America”.
“The Palestinian Muslim family of the child came to America in search of what we are all looking for-a refuge to live, learn and pray in peace,” he said.
Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Chicago Relations, said on Saturday in a statement that “this depraved killer died, but hatred is still very alive”.
