Student stabbed 16 times may have been targeted for wearing Islamic dress
Tweets from jihadist urge UK Muslims to carry out revenge attacks
A STUDENT who died after being stabbed 16 times may have been targeted because she was wearing I sl amic clothing, police said yesterday.
Nahid Almanea, 31, who was just 5ft 4ins, suffered the ‘savage’ attack as she walked to her English class along a popular footpath in broad daylight.
Detectives said one of the ‘main lines’ of their inquiry was that she could have been singled out for being a Muslim as a result of her headscarf and long robe. Their comments emerged as anti-terror investigators examined tweets apparently from a British jihadist in Syria calling for Muslims in the UK to avenge Miss Almanea’s murder. A man using the name Abu Rashash Britani tweeted: ‘I call upon any brother to take up a knife and kill as they did #colchester’. MI5 and Scotland Yard were
‘There is no place for revenge attacks’
already l ooking at the man’s Twitter account after he claimed that insurgents fighting with ISIS in Syria would return to the UK on the orders of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the fanatical terrorist leader behind the wave of atrocities in Iraq.
Comparing Miss Almanea’s killing to the murder of soldier Lee Rigby outside his barracks in Woolwich last year, Britani said: ‘#colchester attack is cowardly act. At least when our noble brothers, killers of #leerigby did so they killed a soldier not a civilian.’
Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Worron, the Essex officer leading the murder hunt, said the force was investigating the tweets.
He added: ‘We will deal with those threats and find these people. There is no place for any kind of revenge attack – that is totally unacceptable.’
Miss Almanea was wearing a multi- coloured patterned headscarf and a dark blue full-length robe called an abaya. Det Chief Supt Worron said police were exploring the possibility that she was targeted because of her Islamic dress. He added: ‘This is a line of inquiry which will be fully explored, but there is no hard evidence to support this currently.’
Det Chief Supt Worron said there could be links between Miss Almanea’s killing to a recent horrific knife murder two miles away. There were ‘obvious similarities’ with the murder of James Attfield, 32, in a park in Colchester two miles away in March, he said. Mr Attfield died after being stabbed 102 times.
Miss Almanea came to Britain from Saudi Arabia six months ago to study English at the University of Essex in Colchester before starting a PhD in life sciences.
She was living with her brother in the garrison town, and they would normally walk to their lectures together. On Tuesday, her brother’s classes started earlier than hers, so she set out on her own.
The student was set upon on a secluded parkside footpath. The murderer stabbed her 16 times to the body, neck, head and arms in a frenzied attack. Two of the wounds were enough to have killed her on their own, a post-mortem examination found.
Retired shopkeeper Vic Edwards, who lives nearby, tried to help her.
He said: ‘When I first saw her I assumed she had fallen over. But she had blood streaming from her head and her breath was rattling like in the last throes of life. I phoned for an ambulance. The operator asked if I could do CPR but by then it was all over.’ Det Chief Supt Worron said: ‘This was a young and very intelligent student with a bright future ahead of her. She has been murdered in what can only be termed as a brutal and savage attack.’
Miss Almanea was based at the university’s International Academy and was due to finish her English course in August.
Academy head Richard Barnard said: ‘Nahid was a very hard-working and conscientious student who was making excellent progress.
‘She was a quiet, considerate and well-respected member of the programme and had ambitions to move on to further academic study. She will be greatly missed by her teachers and fellow students.’ Miss Almanea’s English teacher, who did not wish to be named, added: ‘She was a kind, gentle and beautiful woman who came to this country to improve herself, and now she is dead.’
Omar Ali, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, said Miss Almanea’s death came at a time when the number of attacks on Muslims was increasing. He added: ‘This isn’t the first attack on a Muslim student and certainly is not the last on a member of the Muslim community in the UK.’
Vince Burgess, 52, who was arrested in connection with the murder, was released without charge last night.