Hanan Shaheen testified in an Illinois courtroom about a horrific attack by her landlord, Joseph M. Czuba, following the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Shaheen, who is Muslim and from Jerusalem, faced discrimination and was asked to leave her rental before Czuba violently attacked her, stabbing her multiple times. During the assault, Czuba also fatally stabbed her 6-year-old son, Wadee Alfayoumi. This incident has raised significant concern within Illinois’s Palestinian and Muslim communities, connecting the attack to broader anti-Palestinian sentiments in U.S. discourse. Czuba, who has pleaded not guilty, is on trial for murder and hate crimes.
Hanan Shaheen approached the front of an Illinois courtroom on Tuesday, recounting how her landlord had turned against her and her 6-year-old son within a few days.
According to Ms. Shaheen’s testimony, she had peacefully rented two bedrooms for $300 a month for two years in a modest home situated along a highway in suburban Chicago. However, shortly after Hamas launched an attack on Israel in October 2023, she claimed that one of her landlords started making derogatory remarks about Muslims and demanded that she vacate the premises, where he also resided.
“I told him, ‘Pray for peace,’” stated Ms. Shaheen, who identifies as Muslim and hails from Jerusalem.
Days after that unsettling discussion, Ms. Shaheen informed jurors that her landlord, Joseph M. Czuba, violently forced his way into her room and began stabbing her with a knife, causing injuries to her chest, back, and head. When she fled to a bathroom to call 911, she said Mr. Czuba then brutally attacked her son, Wadee Alfayoumi, a kindergartner who had recently celebrated his birthday. According to her, the boy cried out, “Stop, oh no.”
“While I was sitting on the floor talking to the police, I felt like I would die any second,” Ms. Shaheen testified on Tuesday, as the trial for Mr. Czuba commenced, where he faces charges of murder and hate crimes in state court. Mr. Czuba, 73, has entered a plea of not guilty.
The assault on Ms. Shaheen and the murder of Wadee, who was Palestinian American, garnered global attention and left many within Illinois’s significant Palestinian and Muslim demographics feeling fearful and enraged. Leaders from these communities have linked the assault to the dehumanizing rhetoric employed by certain American politicians and media figures.
Prosecutors characterized Mr. Czuba in court documents as angry, erratic, paranoid, and violent. They noted that he had been consuming radio coverage of the escalating conflict in the Middle East and had grown increasingly anxious about his own safety due to his tenants.
“This occurred because the defendant was terrified that a conflict, which began on Oct. 7, 2023 — thousands of miles away in the Middle East — would reach his doorstep,” prosecutor Michael Fitzgerald told jurors. “This happened because Hanan and Wadee were Muslim.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Czuba was brought into the brightly lit courtroom in Joliet, Ill., in a wheelchair but subsequently walked to the defense table. He sat silently, facing Ms. Shaheen with his back to the crowded gallery, as she detailed the attack and identified him as the perpetrator.
Kylie Blatti, a member of Mr. Czuba’s legal team, reminded jurors that “Joseph Czuba is presumed innocent of every single charge he faces while he sits here today.”
“In a case like this,” she stated, “assumptions cannot be made.”
The Chicago region is home to a significant Palestinian American community, including a suburban area filled with various Arab eateries and shops often referred to as Little Palestine. Wadee and his mother resided in another suburban community, located in Plainfield Township, approximately 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, near a Chevrolet dealership and a barbecue restaurant. At the time of the attack, their residence was decorated with several American flags and an advertisement for organic honey.
Investigators reported that Wadee, a Lego-loving soccer enthusiast whose name has also been transliterated as Wadea Al-Fayoume, suffered 26 stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the hospital. Ms. Shaheen, then 32, endured over a dozen stab wounds and was hospitalized in critical condition.
In court on Tuesday, Ms. Shaheen spoke calmly from the witness stand, occasionally requesting a translation from the Arabic interpreter seated beside her. She responded to questions from prosecutors about graphic photos of her bloodied face taken at the hospital, and she recounted how she fought back against Mr. Czuba, managing to wrest the knife from him and inflict a stab wound before he reclaimed the weapon.
“I started pushing him back, pulling his hair, and he was saying, ‘You must die,’” Ms. Shaheen testified. “And then I looked at my son, who was terrified in the hallway.”
When audio from Ms. Shaheen’s 911 call was played, she could be heard telling the dispatcher that she heard her son screaming from a nearby room. She then remarked that the screaming had ceased.
Robert Chiarito contributed reporting from Joliet.