HONG KONG // A British banker accused of killing two Indonesian women was ruled fit to stand trial on Monday, but the case will be delayed for seven months for analysis of forensic evidence found with the victims’ mutilated bodies in his Hong Kong apartment.
Magistrate Bina Chainrai said Rurik Jutting, a former Bank of America Merrill Lynch employee, was mentally fit to face murder charges after two weeks of examination at the maximum-security Siu Lam psychiatric centre.
The 29-year-old was charged with the murders of Seneng Mujiasih and Sumarti Ningsih after police found the bodies of the two women in his upmarket flat, one of them decomposing in a suitcase.
In a surprise decision Ms Chainrai agreed to the prosecution’s request to delay the trial until July 6 while investigators comb through hundreds of pieces of evidence.
Mr Jutting stood impassively in the dock as the magistrate made her ruling in a packed but silent courtroom. He faces life in prison if convicted of the killings.
Prosecutor Louise Wong told the court that investigators would need 28 weeks to examine some 200 pieces of evidence, including conducting DNA tests.
The former securities trader will remain in custody while the forensic tests are carried out.
Ningsih’s father Ahmad Kaliman, 59, said from Indonesia he was “very disappointed” with the court’s decision.
“Why did the court in Hong Kong delay the trial for such a long time? I want him to be sentenced quickly. I’m very disappointed,” he said.
* Agence France-Presse
