Sabina Nessa‘s sister has revealed the heartbreaking moment she learned of the primary school teacher’s brutal murder – recounting that she immediately broke into tears.
In 2021, the 28-year-oldhad been on her way to meet a friend in south London when killerKoci Selamaj, who had lay in wait for around 20 minutes to select his ‘prey for a violent sexual encounter’, grabbed her from behind.He was jailed for life the following April.
Now, four years on,Jebina Yasmin Islam said how the horrific instance she learned her sister’s fate left her in denial.
Speaking to Cosmopolitan, she recalled the morning of September 19, 2021, when her husband was on the phone to one of her siblings – something she found ‘odd’.
Looking at her own mobile, Jebina realised that she had received a missed call, meaning they tried to reach her first but she hadn’t picked up.
‘That’s when I realised something was wrong,’ she explained. ‘My mind was racing – I thought something had happened to one of my parents. I could tell from his tone of voice that it was serious.’
‘After the call, he sat me down and said, “Something has happened to Sabina”,’ she continued. ‘I couldn’t believe it. I had only spoken to her the other day! I began sobbing. “It’s a lie,” I said. “They’ve got it wrong.”‘
Jebina described how she, her husband and their children got ‘straight in the car’ and drove to her mother’s house, which was an hour away.
Sabina Nessa ‘s sister has revealed the heartbreaking moment she learned of the primary school teacher’s brutal murder – recounting that she immediately broke into tears. Pictured, Sabina
Her head was ‘going 500 miles per hour’ as she tried to make sense of the awful situation, becoming ‘increasingly angry and frustrated’.
She admitted she just wanted ‘someone to tell her there had been a mistake’ – that ‘Sabina was okay and was just out shopping, or meeting friends’.
She found herself constantly scrawling through the sites for online information – before ‘gasping’ at a headline saying that ‘the body of a young woman had been found in Kidbrooke’.
As she tried to keep it together for her children, Jebina’s husband took her phone away from her – telling her to ‘stop torturing yourself like this’.
When they got to her mother’s house, detectives revealed the devastating news that Sabina had been attacked just minutes away from her home, atCator Park. A dogwalker had found her body.
‘It didn’t make sense; I’d been to that park and it was full of families and kids,’ Jebina said. ‘She walked through it all the time.’
Learning the news, she ‘collapsed on the floor, sobbing’. It didn’t ‘feel real’, she shared, but rather like ‘being in a bad dream’.
Garage worker Selamaj was arrested on September 26 that same year, and trainers with Sabina’s blood on them were seized from his home.
Now, four years on, Jebina Yasmin Islam (pictured in 2022) said how the horrific instance she learned her sister’s fate left her in denial
During the 2022 trial, the court heard how – earlier on the day of the killing on September 17 – he had booked a room at The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, near his home.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan QC suggested this was ‘indicative of his premeditation to have some kind of sexual encounter that evening’.
At about 6pm that day, Selamaj contacted his estranged partner Ionela. In a statement, she said he appeared ‘very agitated’ when they met at his car near the hotel.
She said: ‘I think that he wanted to have sex in the car. I don’t know what was bothering him, but he was very agitated.’ She refused and left.
Following Sabina’s murder, Selamaj was arrested in the seaside town and charged over her death days later. In a police interview, he made no comment except to deny murder when asked directly if he was responsible for the killing.
Security camera footage from a London police station showed him holding his head in his hands as he was charged with murder. He later changed his plea to guilty.
Speaking of the trial in her Cosmopolitan interview, Jebina shared: ‘The trial began in February 2022, and lasted four months. But the next two times we went to court, Selamaj didn’t even bother turning up.
‘I couldn’t get my head around it. Are you telling me that the judge, the lawyers, the prison officers have no power to bring him to court? He gets to stay in his cell, while we’re here listening to everything he did to my sister. How is that okay?’
She described it as being ‘very intense’, and couldn’t bring herself to watch the CCTV video of Sabina being struck in the head and killed.
In grainy footage, she appeared ‘oblivious’ as Selamaj ran up behind her and attacked her on the path near a park bench.
He hit her over the head 34 times with his weapon, which broke apart as he rendered her unconscious. Selamaj then dragged her up a slope and out of view for 10 minutes.
The court heard how the killer then asphyxiated her and removed her tights and underwear before trying to cover her body in grass.
The month following Sabina’s murder, around 200 people gathered in Eastbourne, East Sussex, to pay tribute to the school teacher and protest against the ‘crisis of violence against women’.
The peaceful demonstration was marked by cheers and applause as those addressing the crowd spoke out against victim blaming.
Later, the darkening sky was lit with the lights from dozens of mobile phones, as a minute’s silence was held for Sabina.
Jebina broke down as she addressed crowds.
‘Words cannot describe how we are feeling, this feels like we are stuck in a bad dream and can’t get out of it – our world is shattered, we are simply lost for words,’ she shared.
‘No family should go through what we are going through.’
The vigil came after public outrage and debate over women’s safety and policing in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard, who was killed by a serving Met Police officer.
During Selamaj’s sentencing, Judge Mr Justice Sweeney, addressing him in absentia, said:’Sabina Nessa was a wholly blameless victim of an absolutely appalling murder which was entirely the fault of the defendant, which has added to the sense of insecurity people, particularly women living in our cities, when walking or travelling alone especially at night.
‘Sabina’s was a life that mattered, a life that did not deserve to be taken in such a heinous and cowardly way.
‘She had every right, as her family say, to be walking through the park all glammed up and going to enjoy herself after a long week of work.
‘She died in a way that no one should.It is not suggested by him that he has any remorse for what he did to Sabina Nessa.’
Speaking of her legacy, Jebina also told Cosmopolitan of her work for ‘Sabina’s Law’.
Under this, those who commit ‘serious crimes such as rape and murder would have to come to the sentence hearing and face what they’ve done’.
‘If they don’t, they could face an extra two years in prison,’ she shared. ‘People may think, “He’s got a life sentence, what’s an additional two years?” but if you went through what we went through, you would understand it means a lot.’
MPs agree on the principle of this, but are now debating the details.
‘With this new law in place, I’m hoping that it will help victims’ families feel their voices are heard,’ she added. ‘There are hundreds of women like Sabina, whose lives are stolen from them for no other reason than because they are women. There are so many families like ours who are left living under the shadow of that grief.’
