Czuba had been friendly with the boy and his mother before the attack in the Middle East, building the boy a tree house and allowing him to use the swimming pool, The Washington Post reported. But “something changed” in the days following Oct. 7, 2023, and Czuba grew suspicious of the mother and son due to their background and religion, The Post reported.
In a statement Friday, the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called Czuba’s lengthy sentence “a necessary measure of justice.”
“Wadee was an innocent child,” Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, said in a statement. “He was targeted because of who he was — Muslim, Palestinian, and loved.”
One of the boy’s relatives, Mahmoud Yousef, spoke Friday during the sentencing hearing. He thanked the local authorities and Plainfield community for “standing up against the hate crimes,” the Chicago Tribune reported, before turning to face Czuba
“We want to know what made him do this,” Yousef said, according to the Tribune. “What type of news did he hear on the TV or radio that made him do such an unheard [of] crime, that is more than just hate? We are talking about a 6-year-old kid.”
Czuba did not respond to Yousef or speak during the hearing. His attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination rose about 70 percent after the war in Gaza began compared with the same period the year before, according to CAIR. Anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 also reached their highest number since data collection began in 1991, according to the FBI.
