Sabrina Lekaj: Adelaide student’s killer dad Petrit jailed for life
Sabrina Lekaj’s killer father Petrit has been jailed for life after a judge condemned his senseless act of violence.
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A father was sentenced to life imprisonment for the savage stabbing murder of his daughter during a fit of rage — and a “catastrophic breach” of trust.
Convicted heroin dealer Petrit Lekaj, 49, used a 15cm kitchen knife in the unprovoked attack on high-achiever Sabrina, 20, stabbing her eight times as they sat in her 2002 Mercedes-Benz parked near their western suburbs home last year.
He was on Tuesday handed a non-parole period of 20 years in jail. The Albanian builder, who came to Australia as a refugee in 1992, snapped after confronting his daughter about her partying and recreational drug use.
In a statement issued on Tuesday night, his wife Romina Lekaj said: “I just would like to say that this is a family tragedy, a family destroyed by the incompetence of our doctors to diagnose mental illness (on my husband’s side) and the drug epidemic engulfing our state, where even our smartest kids are falling prey to it.
“I hope this is a wake up for to save some other family.”
Earlier Supreme Court Justice Trish Kelly condemned the violence that had “destroyed his family”. “The bond between a parent and child is ordinarily fundamental,” she said.
“The crime of filicide (the killing of a person’s own child) involves such a catastrophic breach of that bond that it is difficult for anybody to fathom how you could have done it.”
He was on Tuesday night in isolation at the high-security Yatala Labor Prison.
Lekaj admitted killing the “apple of his eye”, and causing “catastrophic” damage. As he stood in the dock with his head bowed and showing no emotion as his wife of 24 years wept in the public gallery.
Despite being eligible for a 40 per cent sentencing discount for an early guilty plea, Justice Kelly imposed a 20 per cent reduction.
Sabrina, a radiology student, was bright and popular but also had a partying lifestyle that included experimenting with illicit drugs.
Petrit Lekaj, who The Advertiser revealed has numerous drugs convictions dating back more than two decades, armed himself with a knife to “scare” her on July 21. During an “unpleasant conversation”, he raged at her for driving while intoxicated and “throwing her life away”. In harrowing evidence, he took his knife from his trousers and stabbed her in the abdomen as she looked out the passenger window, near their Kidman Park home.
He then stabbed her another seven times, hours after she confessed to taking cocaine. He told police she was an “evil person with whom he didn’t have a connection”.
“In those few moments you simultaneously destroyed your life as well as Sabrina’s,” Justice Kelly said. “You also changed forever the lives of each member of your family.
“You will have to live with those consequences for the rest of your life.”
Originally published as Sabrina Lekaj: Adelaide student’s killer dad Petrit jailed for life