A man convicted of killing crime from the hatred of the Palestinian American boy | News of Islamophobia
Joseph Czuba is confronted with life in prison for the murder of 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi days after the Israeli war in Gaza began.
The jury in the US state of Illinois condemned a man for charges of killing and crime from hatred for the stabbing of the death of a six -year -old Palestinian American boy in October 2023.
Joseph Czuba, 73, who was found guilty on Friday, faced life in prison when convicted in May For murder That prosecutors said that an anti -Muslim hatred had encouraged, and also left the boy’s mother critically injured, as stated in court writings.
The killing of boys, Wadee Alfayoums and an attack on his mother Hanan Shaheen, was one of the earliest and worst incidents of hate crime in the US since the beginning of the Israeli war against Gaza.
Czuba, who was the owner of Shaheen and her son, broke out a boy 26 times using a military-style knife with a 7-inch (18 cm) serrated blade, the authorities said. Shaheen sustained multiple stab wounds in the attack that occurred in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Chicago.
During the trial this week, Shaheen testified that Czuba told her, “You, as a Muslim, have to die.”
Michael Fitzgerald, prosecutor of the WILL District State Attorney’s Office, presented a recording of a 911 call at the trial.
“The owner kills me and my child,” Shaheen hears as he talks about the sound.
Czuba had previously declared that he was not guilty and did not testify during the trial that began on Tuesday.
‘All our children were targeted’
The case has created titles around the world and has deeply hit the large and established Palestinian community of the Chicago area.
“All of us parents, who are Arabic or Palestinian … who are Muslims, we all saw our children die in Wadee Alfayoums, because it could have been any of our boys, any of our girls,” according to the American-Islamic (Cair) -Abilized Ahmed Rehabilitan.
“It just happened that it was Wadee Alfayoumi. When he was targeted, all our children were targeted. Every Muslim was on target when he was [Czuba] shouted, “All Muslims have to die.”
Abed Ayoub, Executive Director of the Antdiscrimination Committee of American and Arab (ADC), said the verdict brought a measure of justice for Wadee’s family and “sends a clear message that there is no violence soaked here.”
“We will never accept or forget that a six-year-old child lost his life because of the dangerous anti-Palestinian rhetoric,” he said, according to the AFP news agency.
Other American incidents that raise alerts for bias against Arabes include an attempt to drown by a three-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, a stab of Palestinian man in Texas, beating a Muslim man in New York, a violent mafia attack on the Pro-Palestinian protesters in California shooting in California.
