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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Alahna Kindred

Sabina Nessa would have made more headlines if she was white, grieving sister claims

The sister of a murdered teacher believes she and her relatives would have been treated differently if they were a "normal British white family".

Sabina Nessa, 28, was murdered by Koci Selamaj in a park in South East London last September.

He has been jailed for life after pleading guilty to the horrific crime and had refused to attend sentencing proceedings in court last week, with Mr Justice Sweeney calling this decision "cowardly" - a video link was made available to him, but he turned it down.

Sister Jebina Yasmin Islam told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning she didn't feel her sister's murder received enough press coverage.

Jebina says her family has not received any support since her sister was killed (PA)

She said: "My sister didn’t get as much headlines, I feel, at the start. Maybe was it down to her ethnicity?

“She didn’t get the front pages on some of the papers and, in Sarah Everard’s case, she did. I think it’s just down to our ethnicity, to be honest.

"And I feel like if we were a normal British white family we would have been treated equally, I guess.”

She also said that there has been no support from the Government, describing people in senior positions as "useless".

She added: "They've not said nothing.

Koci Selamaj was jailed for a minimum term of 36 years after pleading guilty to murdering the primary school teacher (REX/Shutterstock)

"Priti Patel has done a tweet on Friday and I was not happy about it because all of a sudden she's using my sister's name for publicity reasons.

"And to be honest she has no right."

Afterwards, Jebina appeared on ITV to speak about her sister.

Speaking about the huge loss, Jebina explained: "It's all surreal, it feels like a bad dream that we're all going through.

"It's just heartbreaking, you would never have thought that your young 28-year-old sister was brutally taken away.

Sabina Nessa's sister breaks down in tears on Good Morning Britain (ITV)

"If she was like ill, we could have had some time to spend time with her, make memories. But her life was taken away without a second thought and out of nowhere.

"It's impacted us a lot, it's impacted myself, my sisters, we're scared to walk the streets alone now, and also given the time of day as well."

It was also revealed that Sabina had plans to one day become a headteacher.

On Frida, Selamaj was jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 36 years.

Sabina was strangled after being struck on the head 34 times with a hazard triangle.

Following Koci’s sentencing, Sabina’s sister Jebina Islam hit out at Home Secretary Priti Patel for her “lack of support”.

She responded to a tweet from Ms Patel, who insisted she was doing “everything in her power” to tackle violence against women and girls.

Jebina wrote: "Yes @pritipatel you don’t know what we as a family are going through and to be honest you haven’t even bothered to ask since the death of my sister.

"Lack of support from yourself and @BorisJohnson just shows how ‘important’ it is to tackle male violence to you guys".

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