British banker guilty of ‘sickening’ Hong Kong murders

HONG KONG, China (3rd UPDATE) – A British banker was jailed for life Tuesday, November 8, for the horrifying murder of two Indonesian women at his upscale Hong Kong apartment, in a cocaine-fuelled rampage the judge called “sickening in the extreme”.

Cambridge University graduate Rurik Jutting, 31, tortured Sumarti Ningsih for three days – filming parts of her ordeal on his phone – before slashing her throat with a serrated knife and stuffing her body into a suitcase.

Days later, and with Ningish’s corpse rotting on his balcony, the Bank of America worker picked up Seneng Mujiasih, intending to play out the same sick fantasies, but killed her when she started screaming.

“This must rank as one of the more horrifying murder cases ever to come to court in Hong Kong,” judge Michael Stuart-Moore told the court.

Jutting’s crimes were “sickening in the extreme and beyond a normal person’s imagination”.

He described the case as touching the “very depths of human depravity” and said Jutting had not shown a shred of remorse.

“You go to prison for life,” he said, at the end of a case that has shocked and captivated the city.

Stuart-Moore said Jutting was “highly likely” to kill again if he were ever freed. Defence counsel Tim Owen had earlier told the court that Jutting would apply for transfer to a prison in Britain.

The former Winchester College private school student remained almost expressionless during sentencing at Hong Kong’s high court, only breathing out heavily as he left the dock.

In a gruelling 10-day trial, the jury heard how Jutting became obsessed with slavery, rape and torture – fantasies he had acted out on his first victim, Ningsih.

High on cocaine and alcohol, he tortured her for three days and recorded parts of her torment on his iPhone – footage the jury was forced to watch.

In a final humiliation, he made the young mother lick his toilet bowl before cutting her throat.

In hours of self-recorded ranting on his iPhone after that murder, Jutting described his attacks on Ningsih using pliers, sex toys and a belt.

Days later he murdered Mujiasih, slashing her throat in his living room.

He had prepared to torture her but killed her quickly when she began to scream after spotting a rope gag by his sofa.

Both women were found dead in his US$2,500-a-month flat in the early hours of November 1, 2014, after he called police.

Ningsih and Mujiasih were in their 20s and had gone to Jutting’s apartment after he offered them money for sex.

Jutting cut Mujiasih’s throat hours after meeting her at a bar near his home in the Wanchai district on October 31.

‘I lost my child’

Both victims were from poor farming families in Indonesia and their relatives had relied on them for financial support.

Ningsih’s mother Suratmi, 51, on Tuesday told AFP she welcomed the verdict, but she would never recover.

“I lost my child and the pain will never be cured,” she said, speaking from her home in Cilacap on Indonesia’s main island of Java.

She called for the Indonesian government to support her efforts to seek compensation from Jutting to help support Ningsih’s seven-year-old son, who lives with her in Indonesia.

In a letter read to the court by his defence counsel after the verdicts, Jutting apologized to his victims’ families.

“The evil that I’ve inflicted cannot be remedied by me,” the letter said.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry beyond words.”

But Stuart-Moore dismissed the apology.

“It’s the first mention of saying sorry about what he had done and I don’t accept it,” he told the court.

He described Jutting as an “archetypal sexual predator” who presented an extreme danger to women.

Jutting’s defence had argued that his self-control had been impaired by his heavy use of cocaine and alcohol, combined with narcissistic personality and sexual sadism disorders.

Jutting had admitted manslaughter, but denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

But Judge Stuart-Moore said the high-flying securities trader had known exactly what he was doing.

“The defendant could and should have been able to exercise self control…but he chose not to do so,” he said. – Rappler.com