The rape and murder of an international student in Melbourne has been linked to “primitive male rage” by a psychiatrist.

Killer Codey Herrmann, 21, admits sexually assaulting and murdering 21-year-old Aiia Maasarwe in suburban Bundoora in January and is facing a supreme court plea hearing.

Herrmann has a severe personality disorder and attacked Maasarwe in an “eruption of suppressed rage” he harboured towards the world, a forensic psychiatrist, Prof Andrew Carroll, told the court on Wednesday.

“This is the manifestation of male rage towards a female,” he said, adding the rape and murder were examples of “stereotypical, primitive male rage”.

Herrmann admitted having intrusive violent and sexual thoughts and said he was not proud of them, hitting himself over the head when they came up.

Maasarwe was repeatedly beaten over the head, raped, strangled and covered in flammable WD-40 spray before being set on fire during her walk home from a tram stop.

Her body was found hours later and Herrmann was arrested within two days, linked to the crime scene by clothing.

On Wednesday Maasarwe’s distraught father, Saeed, tried to stymie reporting of the attack, saying he wanted the case paused until he could come to Australia and attend court.

“Because these proceedings are about the murder of my daughter … I now need to be there,” he said in a message read to court by the prosecutor, Patrick Bourke.

But justice Elizabeth Hollingworth denied the request, saying any delay meant Herrmann would not be sentenced until next year.

Codey Herrmann, left, outside the Melbourne supreme court on Wednesday. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

“[Maasarwe] had a right to be here and he chose not to be,” she said.

Lawyers also flagged a request by Maasarwe to suppress details of his daughter’s rape and murder, a day after the brutal particulars were made public.

Hollingworth rejected the suggestion the court should order stories about the case be removed from the internet.

Hours later, Maasarwe’s lawyers told the judge the victim’s father would not proceed with his bid to curtail reporting of the case.

The court was told Herrmann, then aged 20, set fire to Maasarwe before fleeing the scene in a bid to destroy evidence.

Maasarwe, a Palestinian Arab of Israeli citizenship who had moved to Australia last year for study, was on the phone to her sister in Israel when Herrmann attacked.

The young woman cursed and screamed “you piece of shit” in Arabic before her sister heard no more over the phone.

Herrmann had used a significant amount of ice the day before he killed Maasarwe but there was no suggestion he was in a drug-induced psychosis at the time of the murder.

The young man claimed to feel “profound remorse” but when asked about how often he thought about his predicament, replied “Oh perhaps every couple of days,” Carroll said.

After being arrested, Herrmann told police “I didn’t kill no one” but later pleaded guilty to rape and murder.

His hearing is expected to continue on Thursday, ahead of a sentence scheduled for 29 October.