Koci Selamaj
Koci Selamaj (born 4 May 1985) is an Albanian-born British man who murdered Sabina Nessa in 2021 in south-east London in a suspected sexually-motivated attack. His crimes, alongside those of Wayne Couzens and Danyal Hussein, sparked a nationwide discussion across the UK about violence against women.
Biography edit
Selamaj was born in 1985 in Albania. At the time of Sabina Nessa's murder he was working in a garage in Eastbourne.
On 17 September 2021 Selamaj checked into The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, then drove to London. CCTV footage caught him walking through Cator Park, where Nessa was killed, at 20:00, 30 minutes before the murder. At roughly 20:30 he encountered Sabina Nessa walking through Cator Park on a five-minute walk to meet with a friend. Selamaj pounced on her and struck her over the head with a two-foot object, believed to be a traffic triangle, and dragged her into the bushes, where she was killed. He then drove to Tunbridge Wells, where he disposed of the traffic triangle by throwing it in the River Teise, before reaching his hotel in Eastbourne at about 00:00. Nessa's body was found the following day; the cause of death could not be established but was either blunt force trauma or strangulation. It could also not be established whether Selamaj had sexually assaulted Nessa.
During the police investigation two men who had been in the area were arrested and then released without charge. Selamaj was also declared a suspect due to CCTV placing him in the area at the time. Selamaj was arrested on 26 September after CCTV footage was found showing him knocking Nessa down and dragging her away. He was officially charged with murder the following day and remanded in custody in HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Appearing via videolink at the Old Bailey on 16 December, he pleaded not guilty to murder despite admitting that he killed Nessa. At a pre-trial hearing on 25 February 2022 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 36 years on 7 April.