London Evening Standard/London


A beauty queen has been stabbed to death at her home in east London. A murder investigation was launched after model Linah Keza, 29, was found dead by paramedics following the attack in the early hours of Wednesday.
A 38-year-old man has been arrested and was yesterday being questioned by detectives over the killing.
Keza, said to be a mother of a three-year-old girl, is understood to have arrived in the UK from Rwanda 10 years ago.
Tributes have poured in for the model, who was described by friends as “an angel”.
Her brother, Jack Hodari, said: “It’s so tragic that good people die this young. I am not saying this because she was my sister, but the whole world can tell you this. Look at all the friends she had, see what they are saying.”
Addressing his sister’s alleged killer on Facebook, he said: “I curse the day your were born. Your name and everything about you is bitter...We know you are coward. I curse you and I declare that you’ll know no peace and joy.”
Keza’s cousin Hazel Bamwanga Kagoro added: “You will be missed my dear, we will fight for your justice to the end.”
Police were called by the London Ambulance Service at 4.29am on Wednesday to reports of a stabbing in King Edward Road, Leyton.
Ghulam and Shazia Mohyuddin heard screams in the flat above them as the victim called for help.
Mohyuddin, 47, said: “My wife heard screaming and was really scared. There was screaming then the door upstairs banged. Someone came running down the stairs.”
He said the victim lived with her daughter: “She must have been in the flat when this happened, they were always together.”
He said Keza was a doting mother and that all the neighbours in the flat block liked her. “She was lovely and she and her daughter were always smiling. It is such a shock, we can’t sleep because we think of the screams and what happened to that poor girl.”
Detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command have launched a murder investigation. Keza was born in Uganda before moving to Rwanda’s capital Kigali as a teenager. She was described as an “active member” of the Rwandan community in London.
In an online tribute, friend Alex Vuningoma said: “Miss Linah Keza. I have trouble accepting the fact that you’re gone, so I won’t... It’ll be like we went for awhile without seeing each other.”