The family of Sabrina Nessa have slammed her ‘cowardly’ killer for ‘trying to transfer from Broadmoor to an Albanian jail to be closer to his family’.
Koci Selamaj, who is currently at the high-security psychiatric hospital, told his father he wants to serve his life sentence for the murder of Ms Nessa, 28, in his native Albania.
Selamaj, 39, was jailed for life in April 2022 for the murder of Ms Nessa, who he targeted as she walked alone through Cator Park in Kidbrooke, south-east London, in September 2021.
His attack on the two officers at HMP Frankland just a year into the sentence, on May 8, 2023, resulted in him being transferred to Broadmoor.
He has been ordered to serve an extra four and a half years after the minimum term on his life sentence has passed – meaning he will not be freed until sometime in the early 2060s when he is 73 years old.
But his father Bashkim has said his son told him he wants to transfer but will need to finish his medical treatment first, according to The Mirror.
He told the newspaper that Selamaj said that he wants to ‘come home but I am still not well’.
There is a possibility that Selamaj could be transferred to home after the UK struck a deal with Albanian premier Edi Rama to allow some prisons to finish their sentences back home.
But Ms Nessa’s sister, Jebina Islam, said Selamaj should serve his sentence in the UK.
‘I couldn’t care less if his family wants him back in Albania, or he wants to serve his time there to be closer to them and make it easier for himself’, she told the Mirror.
‘He wants an easier, reduced sentence, it’s as simple as that’.
Ms Nessa’s murder came after a number of high-profile femicides, including Sarah Everard, 33, who was snatched in London and killed by policeman Wayne Couzens on March 3 earlier that year.
Meanwhile sisters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were stabbed to death in a Wembley park by 19-year-old Danyal Hussein on June 6, 2020.
In September 2021, Sabina had been on her way to meet a friend in south London when Selamaj, who had lay in wait for around 20 minutes to select his ‘prey for a violent sexual encounter’, grabbed her from behind.
The killer had travelled from his home in Eastbourne to carry out the killing. Using an emergency triangle from his car, he beat her unconscious, striking her 34 times.
He then dragged her into an area of long grass and asphyxiated her before removing some of her clothes and trying to conceal her body. However, it was found the following evening by a dog-walker.
A year and a half later, it emerged that the Selmanj had been flagged to police just three days before he murdered Sabina, but police chose not to investigate.
Selamaj had beaten and throttled his wife for months – but after she left him, he took a room at the hotel where she worked.
Colleagues of the killer’s estranged wife Ionela had called the 101 non-emergency number from the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne after they saw him ‘acting strangely’ and refusing to pay for his stay at the five-star hotel.
But police did not attend. A call handler completed security checks on Selamaj but saw no reason for officers to show up.
Mr Justice Sweeney, sentencing Selamaj to life at the time, said: ‘I have no doubt that the defendant gained considerable pleasure from what he did.’
