British banker charged with double murder in Hong Kong

Two women were found killed in the upmarket apartment of Rurik George Caton Jutting, who appeared at a preliminary court hearing in Hong Kong on Monday.

HONG KONG // Hong Kong police charged a British banker on Monday with killing two women, including an Indonesian national whose body was found inside a suitcase on the balcony of his upscale apartment.

The killings have shocked Hong Kong, which has a reputation as a safe city with a low rate of violent crime.

Rurik George Caton Jutting, 29, appeared briefly at a preliminary hearing. He spoke only to confirm that he understood the two murder charges against him.

Police said Mr Jutting had called them to his apartment in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district at 3.42am on Saturday.

When officiers arrived they found they found an unconscious woman, between the age of 25 to 30, with cuts to her neck and body. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

While investigating, they then found a suitcase on the balcony containing the body of a dead woman who had sustained neck injuries and had died a few days earlier.

A charge sheet said a woman named Sumarti Ningsih was killed on October 27, which indicated she was the woman whose body was found in the suitcase. The other woman’s name was unknown.

Media in Hong Kong described the two victims as prostitutes and said one was nearly decapitated.

Indonesian consulate spokeswoman Sam Aryadi confirmed that Sumarti was Indonesian. Eni Lestari, an adviser with the Association of Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong, said that the second woman was also Indonesian.

“We are now trying to locate those victims’ families and we’re trying to let the families and relatives know about this very sad situation,” said Ms Aryadi,.

She said records showed Sumarti entered Hong Kong with a tourist visa on October 4 and was given permission to stay until November 3.

During the brief court appearance, the two murder charges were read to Mr Jutting, who was wearing black trousers and a black T-shirt with “New York” and “Champions” written on it.

When asked if he understood the charges, he said “I do” in a calm voice. He was remanded in custody until November 10.

Police said they seized a knife at the apartment, located in Hong Kong’s upscale J Residence building, a 40-storey apartment tower.

Mr Jutting is a University of Cambridge graduate who had been working in structured equity finance and trading for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong since July 2013 and before that in London for about three years, according to a listing on LinkedIn. Prior to that he worked for Barclays.

Hong Kong, one of Asia’s biggest financial hubs, is home to many foreign residents who work as bankers, lawyers, accountants and teachers.

The city hasn’t seen such a high-profile case involving a foreign resident since the “Milkshake Murder” case in 2003, in which American expatriate housewife Nancy Kissel was convicted of bludgeoning her high-flying banker husband to death after giving him a strawberry milkshake laced with a sedative.

Kissel is serving a life sentence for killing her husband Robert Kissel, who also worked at Merrill Lynch, which was later bought by Bank of America.

* Associated Press