Who was Joseph Czuba? Landlord who killed 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy in hate crime dies in Illinois prison
He died Thursday in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections, according to the Will County Sheriff's Office, according to New York post report.
Who was Joseph Czuba ?
Joseph Czuba, 73, was found guilty in February of murder, attempted murder, and hate crime charges for an attack that killed 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and injured his mother, Hanan Shaheen in October 2023.
Prosecutors said Czuba targeted the family because they were Muslim and that he was upset over the start of the Israel-Hamas war, which had broken out just days earlier. The family was renting rooms in Czuba's Plainfield home, about 40 miles from Chicago, at the time of the attack.
Evidence in the trial included Shaheen's 911 call, her testimony, police video, and crime scene photos. She told jurors that Czuba came after her first, then turned on her son, yelling that they had to leave because they were Muslim.
Joseph Czuba stabbed the boy 26 times
Czuba's ex-wife, Mary, testified that he had become increasingly angry about the war. Police said he pulled a knife from his belt and stabbed Wadee 26 times, leaving the knife in the boy's body.
Some of the crime scene images were so graphic the judge turned the courtroom screens away from the audience, which included Wadee's family members.
Jurors took less than 90 minutes to reach a verdict. Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR's Chicago office, said in a statement, 'This depraved killer has died, but the hate is still alive and well.'
Also Read: Mother of Palestinian American boy slain in suburban Chicago hate crime testifies at trial
The murder shocked Plainfield and nearby suburbs, where many Palestinian families live. Wadee's funeral was heavily attended, and the town has since named a playground in his honor.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
15 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Today in Politics: What the Malegaon verdict means politically
The crucial Malegaon verdict on Thursday has wide-ranging repercussions politically. The acquittal of all the accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, in the 2008 Malegaon blast case by a special court has given the BJP fresh ammunition to target the Congress, which has been groping in the dark against the ruling party's charge against it of being a 'pro-Muslim' and – by extension – an 'anti-Hindu' party. The Congress has often fallen between two stools in navigating this territory since the BJP's rise in the 1980s and, on Thursday, the central leadership maintained a telling silence in the wake of the Malegaon judgment. The 2008 blasts, blamed on accused with links to Hindutva groups, had come amidst a string of terror incidents under the UPA government. The attack in Malegaon was preceded days earlier by the Batla House encounter, in which alleged terrorists linked to the Indian Mujahideen and to several incidents across the country were killed. Two months later followed the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, one of the worst the country has seen. Even as the government dealt with the attacks, statements by several Congress leaders in their wake landed the UPA government in a sticky situation. Digvijaya Singh, the Congress general secretary, raised doubts over the Batla House encounter by security agencies, suggesting it was 'fake'. In the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, he said he had spoken to Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare hours earlier, and that Karkare had told him he was receiving threats from Hindu extremists. Karkare was at the time heading the investigation into the September 29, 2008, Malegaon blasts. In 2010, the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram first used the word 'saffron terror'. Addressing an annual conference of DGPs and IGPs, he said: 'There is no let-up in the attempts to infiltrate militants into India. There is no let-up in the attempts to radicalise young men and women. Besides, there is the recently uncovered phenomenon of saffron terrorism that has been implicated in many bomb blasts of the past.' The Congress distanced itself from Chidambaram's remarks then, saying 'terrorism does not have any colour other than black'. The same year, one of the secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks quoted Rahul Gandhi as telling then US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer during a lunch in 2009 that 'the bigger threat (than outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba) may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community'. In 2012, then Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid also sparked a row when he said that Sonia Gandhi 'wept bitterly' when she was shown images of the Batla House encounter. Following its rout in 2014 and its struggles to rebuild, the Congress has attempted course-correction, with a section in the party emphasising the need to reach out to Hindus. Rahul Gandhi's frequent temple visits and assertions of being a 'Shiva devotee' are seen as a part of it, as well as the party's engagement with the Hindutva vs Hinduism narrative. Manoj C G breaks down these attempts The sudden announcement of President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on Indian goods from August 1, with an additional but unspecified 'penalty' for its defence and energy imports from Russia has put a lot of stress on the Narendra Modi government. This move, coming just ahead of an impending trade agreement, could pull down the economy and cast a shadow on India-US ties, experts say. Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, who has served as Finance minister for four terms and was also the Commerce and Industry minister, talks to The Indian Express of the tightrope that India must now walk on the negotiations. 'Negotiating a trade agreement with the United States is not easy. It is painstaking. The big obstacle is that we had — and in many cases still have — is high tax. As a result of that, the trade balance between the United States and India is almost $45 billion in our favour. We can say the same thing about our trade with other countries, where the trade balances in favor of the other country. But that is part of the world of commerce… We will have to deal with it. We do not have to bend over. At the same time, we do not have to be defiant,' says Chidambaram. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday said that political parties and electors will be given one full month to add names of eligible citizens or remove names of those they think are ineligible from the draft electoral rolls of Bihar to be published on August 1. In a statement to the voters, the CEC said that as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls of the state, the draft electoral rolls for Bihar are being published on Friday. Physical as well as digital copies will also be given to all the recognised political parties in Bihar in all the 38 districts by the district election officers (DEOs), Kumar said. The CEC's remarks come amid continuous protests by the opposition parties against the SIR, claiming that it will deny eligible citizens of their to right vote for want of documents. They also alleged that the local poll machinery in Bihar could be manipulated by the ruling BJP-JD (U) alliance to its benefit. The protests have disrupted both Houses of Parliament on a daily basis during the ongoing Monsoon session.
New Indian Express
15 minutes ago
- New Indian Express
Political row erupts over Malegaon blast verdict
NEW DELHI/BHOPAL/MUMBAI/LUCKNOW : Following the acquittal of all accused in the Malegaon blast case, the BJP on Thursday accused the Congress of having concocted the theory of 'Hindu terror' during its tenure in power, to allegedly thwart the political rise of Narendra Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat. The BJP claimed the Congress devised this narrative as part of a strategy to appease Muslim voters. 'The Congress can go to any extent in its vote bank politics,' stated former Law Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad at a media briefing. He demanded an apology to the nation from former Congress presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Prasad demanded that those discharged from the case, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit, be compensated adequately. Thakur supporters celebrate In Bhopal, supporters of Pragya Thakur danced and distributed sweets after hearing the verdict. They want a grant celebration after Thakur returns from Mumbai to her B-29, 74 Bungalows residence in a couple of days. Five kilometres away, supporters burst crackers outside the residence of former CM Uma Bharti at 6, Shyamala Hills. She turned emotional, recounting her meeting with Thakur while the latter was incarcerated. Bharti recalled, 'I met Pragya at the Nashik Jail, when no one went there to meet her. A Maharashtra police officer had told me that she was tortured unimaginably. I was in tears while meeting her and still remember her confirming that she had been tortured beyond imagination.'
Hindustan Times
2 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
BJP says Congress should apologise for 'Hindu terror' claims
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday welcomed the acquittal of all the seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case and attacked the Congress, accusing it of coming up with the theory of 'Hindu terror' to appease its 'Muslim votebank', and demanded an apology from the leadership of the Opposition party. The Congress hit back, accusing the BJP of 'polarising' every issue. BJP says Congress should apologise for 'Hindu terror' claims Nearly 17 years after the blast in Muslim-dominated Malegaon in Maharashtra claimed six lives in 2008, a special NIA court in Mumbai acquitted all seven accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit on Thursday, noting there was 'no reliable and cogent evidence' against them. 'The Congress can go to any extent to appease its vote bank. This case was a well-calculated conspiracy of the party for sheer vote-bank politics,' BJP lawmaker and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters after the court's verdict. He slammed Congress veterans and former home ministers P Chidambaram and Sushilkumar Shinde for promoting the idea of saffron and Hindu terrorism. Chidambaram used the term while addressing the annual conference of DGPs and IGPs on August 25, 2010, he said. 'There was no evidence against any of the accused. Colonel Purohit, who fought against terrorism in Kashmir, was accused. Pragya Thakur was accused of using her motorcycle in the blast. She was tortured so much that she could not walk after that. This was a Congress conspiracy for sheer vote-bank politics,' Prasad said, demanding an apology from the Congress leadership. On Wednesday, Union home minister Amit Shah during a special discussion on Operation Sindoor in the Rajya Sabha had slammed the Congress for coining the term Hindu terror, while asserting that 'Hindus can never be terrorists'. Welcoming the court verdict, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in a post on X said: 'Terrorism was never saffron, is not and will never be.' The RSS, BJP's ideological fount, also hailed the verdict, saying the truth has been clarified by the court decision regarding the Malegaon blast case. 'Some individuals, driven by personal interests and political motives, misused power in a malicious attempt to associate Hinduism and the entire Hindu community with terrorism. Through a lengthy judicial process and based on facts, the court has today, with its decision, nullified those baseless allegations,' RSS chief spokesperson Sunil Ambekar said. Maharashtra deputy CM Eknath Shinde, who is also the president of Shiv Sena, an NDA partner, said the verdict has wiped off the stigma on the Hindu community. 'Truth is never defeated. After a long battle of seventeen years, a special court has acquitted seven alleged accused in the Malegaon bomb blast case. It is true that justice was delayed, but it has once again been proven that truth is never defeated,' Shinde wrote on X. Hitting back at the BJP, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters: 'They (the BJP) polarise everything. There was no good prosecution, good evidence was not collected… how should this matter be let go, if this is what the government has in mind, then what do they do on the prosecution side?' His party colleague Digviyaya Singh dismissed BJP's charge, saying the Congress never coined the term saffron terror. 'There is no terrorism on the basis of religion. There is neither Hindu terrorism nor Islamic terrorism. Every religion is the embodiment of love, faith, truth and non-violence. There are only a few people who use religion as a weapon of hatred. But you keep saying that the term Hindu terrorism was given by the Congress. You are absolutely wrong,' Singh told reporters. Maharashtra Congress chief Harshwardhan Sapkal asked the state government if it will move the higher court against the verdict to ensure justice is delivered in the Malegaon case. 'As soon as the verdict of the 2006 bomb blast was announced, the state government challenged it before the Supreme Court. Will the state government show the same will in this case, as both were the act of terrorism and the perpetrators of the cases should face justice,' he said, referring to the recent acquittal of convicts in the 2006 Mumbai blasts case. The top court set aside the HC order. Speaking to reporters in the Parliament complex, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said, 'Will the Modi government and the Maharashtra government challenge the verdict in Supreme Court? Or will they continue their hypocrisy on terrorism?' (With inputs from Mumbai bureau)
