OCTOBER 30, 2023, UDPATE:
JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — A man has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder and a hate crime in an attack on a Palestinian American woman and her son. Seventy-one-year-old Joseph Czuba appeared in court Monday (Oct. 30, 2023) on eight counts from an indictment by an Illinois grand jury. He is charged in the fatal stabbing of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume and the wounding of 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin on Oct. 14. Authorities say the victims were targeted because of their Muslim faith. Shahin told police that Czuba, her landlord in Plainfield in Will County, was upset over the Israel-Hamas war and attacked them after she had urged him to “pray for peace.”
OCTOBER 30, 2023:
JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — A man accused of murder, attempted murder and a hate crime in an attack on a Palestinian American woman and her son is scheduled to appear in court following his indictment by an Illinois grand jury. Joseph Czuba, 71, is expected to enter a plea at an arraignment Monday (Oct. 30, 2023) on eight counts in the indictment filed last week. He is charged in the fatal stabbing of Wadea Al-Fayoume, 6, and the wounding of Hanaan Shahin, 32, on Oct. 14, 2023. Authorities say the victims were targeted because of their Muslim faith. Shahin told police that Czuba, her landlord in Plainfield in Will County, was upset over the Israel-Hamas war and attacked them after she had urged him to “pray for peace.”
OCTOBER 25, 2023:
CHICAGO (AP) — A Palestinian American woman whose 6-year-old son was killed in what police are calling a hate crime in a Chicago suburb is asking the public to “pray for peace” as she recuperates from her injuries. Hanaan Shahin issued a statement Tuesday (Oct. 24, 2023) through the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations after meeting with the group’s executive director a day earlier. It marked her first public comments since the brutal Oct. 14, 2023, attack that left her with multiple stab wounds and stitches on her face. She was recently released from the hospital. Authorities say the family’s suburban Chicago landlord singled them out because of their Islamic faith and as a response to the escalating Israel-Hamas war.
OCTOBER 16, 2023, UPDATE:
CHICAGO (AP) — A 71-year-old Illinois landlord upset over the Israel-Hamas war attacked a Palestinian American woman with a knife when she proposed they “pray for peace” and killed her 6-year-old son, authorities said Monday.
The details emerged as Joseph Czuba appeared in court on murder, attempted murder and hate crime charges while the boy’s Muslim family prepared to bury him in the Chicago area.
Czuba, a Plainfield resident, replied, “Yes, sir,” when asked if he understood the charges and was subsequently returned to jail in Joliet, 50 miles (80.4 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. A Will County judge granted a court-appointed lawyer.
Wadea Al-Fayoume, who had just turned 6, had been stabbed multiple times when sheriff’s deputies discovered him Saturday (Oct. 14, 2023) in response to a 911 call.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the sheriff’s office said.
The boy’s mother told investigators that she rents two rooms on the first floor of the Plainfield home while Czuba and his wife live on the second floor, Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Fitzgerald said in a court filing.
“He was angry at her for what was going on in Jerusalem,” Fitzgerald said. “She responded to him, ‘Let’s pray for peace.’ … Czuba then attacked her with a knife.”
The boy’s mother fought him off and went into a bathroom where she stayed until police arrived. Wadea, meanwhile, was in his own room, Fitzgerald said.
“Wadea should be heading to school in the morning. Instead, his parents will wake up without their son,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a written statement.
Jewish and Muslim groups have reported an increase of hateful rhetoric in the wake of the war.
“We are not animals, we are humans,” said the boy’s uncle, Yousef Hannon. “We want people to see us as humans, to feel us as humans, to deal with us as humans.”
Police found Czuba with a cut on his forehead, sitting on the ground outside the home. The public defender’s office did not immediately return messages seeking comment about the charges against him.
Czuba’s wife, Mary, told police that her husband feared they would be attacked by people of Middle Eastern descent and had withdrawn $1,000 from a bank “in case the U.S. grid went down,” Fitzgerald said in the court document.
The Justice Department said it opened a hate crime investigation into the attack.
“This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are,” President Joe Biden said.
OCTOBER 16, 2023:
CHICAGO (AP) — Authorities say a 71-year-old Illinois man has been charged with a hate crime, accused of fatally stabbing a young boy and seriously wounded a woman because of their Islamic faith and the Israel-Hamas war. The Will County Sheriff’s Office says in a statement that the man was in custody Sunday (Oct. 15, 2023) and is charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, hate crimes and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Authorities say they found the woman and child repeatedly stabbed Saturday morning at a home southwest of Chicago. The sheriff’s office says the woman was hospitalized with multiple stab wounds and is expected to survive.
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