Jury Convicts Landlord in Fatal Stabbing of Palestinian American Boy

U.S.|Jury Convicts Landlord in Fatal Stabbing of Palestinian American Boy

A jury in suburban Chicago convicted a man on Friday on murder and hate crime charges in the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy who lived at his property. The killing, which took place days after Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, was fueled by anti-Muslim hate, the authorities said.

The defendant, Joseph M. Czuba, 73, faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced.

The attack on Wadee Alfayoumi, a kindergartner who loved Legos and soccer, drew international attention and left many members of Illinois’s large Palestinian and Muslim communities frightened and angry. Some leaders in those communities connected the attack to rhetoric used by some American politicians and media personalities that they said dehumanized Palestinians.

Wadee and his mother, Hanan Shaheen, who was wounded in the attack, had lived for two years in rented rooms in Mr. Czuba’s home in Plainfield Township, Ill., about 40 miles southwest of Chicago.

After the violence in the Middle East began, Ms. Shaheen told the jury, the relationship with her landlord suddenly soured. She said Mr. Czuba began making hateful statements about Muslims and demanded that Ms. Shaheen and her young son move out.

“I told him, ‘Pray for peace,’” said Ms. Shaheen, who is Muslim and Palestinian American.

But a few days later, she said, Mr. Czuba knocked on her bedroom door and began stabbing her with a knife, leaving her bleeding from the chest, back and head. After she retreated into a bathroom to call 911, she said Mr. Czuba attacked Wadee, who had just celebrated his birthday. Ms. Shaheen remembered her son crying out, “Stop! Oh no!”

“I was sitting on the floor talking to the police, and I felt like in any second I would die,” Ms. Shaheen said during Mr. Czuba’s trial this week.