Illinois Landlord Found Guilty Of Murdering 6-year-old Muslim Boy
In a case that underscored deep concerns over anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, a 73-year-old Illinois landlord was convicted Friday of murder and committing a hate crime following the killing of a 6-year-old boy and the wounding of his mother.
Joseph Czuba was found guilty of stabbing Wadee Alfayoumi 26 times with a knife and injuring his mother, Hanan Shaheen, in a targeted attack in Plainfield, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.
Prosecutors argued that Czuba’s actions were a direct response to the war in Gaza, with the family specifically targeted because of their faith.
The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before returning a verdict, which brought mixed emotions for the victim’s family.
Czuba is scheduled to be sentenced on May 7. He faces life in prison without the chance of parole.
Separately, civil lawsuits have been filed over the boy’s death, including by his father, Alfayoumi, who is divorced from Shaheen and not living with them.
Shaheen testified at trial that Czuba told her they had to move out because Muslims were not welcome in his building. At the time, she said, Shaheem urged him to “pray for peace.”
The murder, which occurred in Oct. 14, 2023, — just a week after the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel — stirred significant fears of rising Islamophobia amid the early stages of the war between Israel and Hamas.
As a result, the slaying drew widespread attention from civil rights groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Ahmed Rehab, the group's executive director in Chicago, expressed solidarity with the family, highlighting the broader implications for Islamophobia in the U.S. amid global conflicts.
He said it was too difficult for the boy’s mother to speak with reporters, adding that she “only prays for peace and love.”
“All of us who are parents, who are Arab or Palestinian … who are Muslim, we all saw our children die in Wadee Alfayoumi, because this could have been any one of our boys, any one of our girls,” Rehab added. “It just so happened that it was Wadee Alfayoumi. When he was targeted, all of our children were targeted. Every Muslim was targeted when [Czuba] yelled, ‘All Muslims must die.’”
Within the U.S. Muslim community, CAIR reported 3,578 complaints of hate in the last three months of 2023 — a 178% increase compared to the previous year. In 2023, CAIR recorded 8,061 complaints nationwide, the highest in its 30-year history.
CAIR’s National Executive Director Nihad Awad said “justice has been done” in Alfayoumi’s case.
“But no guilty verdict, however just, will bring Wadee back to life,” he added.
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.