An Illinois man has been declared guilty of murder and a hate crime for killing 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American, back in 2023. This occurred days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel. Joseph Czuba, 73, also stabbed Hanan Shaheen, the boy’s mother, during the attack at their residence in Plainfeild, Ill, per PEOPLE. 

After the mother was stabbed she attempted to call 911 from the bathroom, Czuba then assaulted her son Wadea. She heard him scream for aid. During the trial, prosecutors revealed that Wadea had been discovered naked and had sadly, been jabbed 26 times, they found him with the knife still in him, per the Associated Press. 

Will County assistant state’s attorney, Michael Fitzgerald, said, “If it wasn’t enough that this defendant killed that little boy, he left the knife in the little boy’s body.” 

The jury listened to a recording of Czuba talking to an officer, where he called Wadea and his mother “infested rats.” Hanan Shaheen testified that after the attack on Oct. 7, Czuba told her she and her son needed to leave, saying, “You, as a Muslim, must die.” He was also found guilty of attempted murder.

Czuba’s defense said the investigation lacked important evidence and claimed his ex-wife only remembered one outburst from their long marriage.

#Clique, let’s keep Hanan Shaheen in our thoughts and prayers!