Murderer taunted victim’s mum with abusive texts
THE sadistic killer of a talented Cardiff student went on the run and used his victim’s phone to text her mother a chilling message warning: “You’re next”.
Sammy Almahri fled abroad after killing his estranged girlfriend Nadine Aburas in a hotel room.
Reliving the moment she learned her daughter was dead, mother Andrea Aburas said she simply “shut down” and asked police: “Just take me to Nadine and everything will be fine.”
The 28-year-old’s body had been found in the Future Inn hotel in Cardiff Bay on January 1, 2015, after New Yorker Almahri had strangled her but tried to make her death look like a suicide.
In a television interview aired last night, Mrs Aburas said her family were “once again thrown into this despair of unbelievable, unimagina- ble horror” when American limo driver Almahri used her daughter’s phone to send abusive messages to the family. One read: “It’s your fault Nadine is dead. You’re next.”
Adevastated mum said she was thrown into “unimaginable horror” when her daughter’s murderer taunted her with abusive texts while he was on the run.
Andrea Aburas’ daughter Nadine was strangled to death on New Year’s Eve in 2014 in a Cardiff hotel room by her estranged boyfriend.
The 28-year-old was stalked and blackmailed by killer Sammy Almahri, 45, after meeting him online in 2012 and striking up a relationship.
A hotel worker found her body at the Future Inn hotel on New Year’s Day.
New York limo driver Almahri then went on the run to Tanzania, but used Nadine’s mobile phone to send chilling texts to her family in Cardiff.
One read: “It’s your fault Nadine is dead. You’re next.”
Speaking to new TV series Swipe Right For Murder, which aired on Really last night, Andrea said: “We were, once again, thrown into this despair of unbelievable, unimaginable horror of having Nad’s phone text us and insult and assault us.”
Andrea had encouraged her daughter to try online dating after she had ended an earlier marriage.
Almahri conned Nadine into thinking he was a rich businessman after they met on a Muslim dating site and soon the pair were talking every day.
But the relationship became more intense when he began sending her expensive gifts including a phone and a laptop.
He began to talk of marriage and promised to support her as a student.
Her sister Aneesa said this swayed Nadine, who had never had help from a man to achieve her dreams of becoming an architect.
But forensic psychologist Dr Ruth Tully told the show that Almahri’s gift-giving could have had a darker motive.
She said: “This could have been a way of him trying to control her or making her feel she was indebted to him in a way so she felt she had to have contact with him even when there could have been some warning signs.
“Online dating opens up a huge range of opportunities for dating people on the other side of the world.
“For someone like Nadine, who lived in a small city, this could have been quite a glamorous opportunity or something to take her away from the day-to-day life she was living.”
In 2013 Nadine flew to New York to see Almahri, but the trip was to turn sour when he became violent and controlling.
Andrea said: “He punched her. She sent photos of her bruised lip. She had black eyes and her body was bruised.
“It shocked all of us and she still tried to keep herself together.”
Aneesa said her sister decided to end the relationship there and then.
She said: “Nadine came back and said, ‘This is as far as I go’.”
But sadistic Almahri wouldn’t let the relationship end and began blackmailing Nadine with photos and videos taken during their relationship.
Criminal psychologist Jonathan Taylor told the programme: “Sammy Almahri turns to blackmail, online blackmail, revenge pornography.
“The only way he knew he can control her. From now on he’s blackmailing her with the images.”
Andrea said: “He had phoned her and said he had photographs of her and he was now blackmailing her. He said, ‘If you leave I will post these all over the internet’.”
Nadine decided to invite Almahri to Cardiff in a bid to confront him and persuade him to hand over the photos.
He came but he was to go on to take her life and flee the UK to Qatar and then Tanzania, where he was eventually arrested.
DCI Gareth Morgan, of South Wales Police, told the programme: “New Year’s Eve 2014 was a very busy time for South Wales Police as a force.
“At around 12.20pm [on New Year’s Day] we got a call from the Future Inn manager who had found a body in room 203 of the hotel.
“He reckoned it might have been a suicide.
“The room was laid out like a typical hotel.
“Lying on the mattress dressed, almost with her arms laid out, was Nadine.
“There was a crudely-written note.”
Officers raised questions about the suicide note and detectives were called in.
On hearing the news of her daughter’s death Andrea said: “I shut down and they said, ‘You have to sit down’. I said, ‘Just take me to Nadine and everything will be fine’.”
In 2016 Almahri admitted murdering Nadine. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 17 years.