An Illinois landlord convicted of murdering his six-year-old Palestinian-American tenant in a violent hate crime has died in custody.
Joseph Czuba was sentenced to 53 years behind bars in May for the murder of Wadea al-Fayoume as well as the severe wounding and attempted murder of his mother Hanaan Shaheen in 2023.
Police say the landlord targeted the pair for their Islamic faith shortly after the start of the Israel-Gaza war. He died at the Illinois Department of Corrections on Thursday, according to the Will County Sheriff’s Office.
Czuba had served less than three months of his decades-long sentence when he died of a currently unknown cause at the age of 73.
The family had been renting rooms from Czuba in Plainfield, about 40 miles (64km) from Chicago, when the attack took place. Police say Czuba stabbed al-Fayoume 26 times. The boy later died in hospital.
Czuba was convicted of two counts of hate crime, one count of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and two of aggravated battery.
His mother testified in court that Czuba had also attacked her with a knife before moving on to her son, telling her “you, as a Muslim, must die”, Reuters reported.
She did not attend her son’s funeral as she was recovering in hospital from injuries received in the attack.
Some crime scene footage displayed during the trial was so explicit that the judge agreed not to show it to audience members. Al-Fayoume’s family had been among the crowd.
Jurors took less than 90 minutes to return a verdict in the case that received attention across the US and renewed fears of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination.
Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Chicago office, said in a statement after Czuba’s death that while “this depraved killer has died, the hate is still alive and well”.
A memorial to al-Fayoume was unveiled at a playground in Plainfield in June. The city is home to a large and well-established Palestinian community.
By BBC News
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