Briton on murder charges following grisly discovery
Print Edition
A 29-YEAR-OLD Briton who worked for Bank of America Merrill Lynch has been charged with murder after the grisly discovery of two female corpses, including one in a suitcase, in his upmarket Hong Kong apartment, police said yesterday.
The women were found dead on the 31st floor of a residential block in the popular expatriate district of Wanchai in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Rurik George Caton Jutting appeared briefly at a preliminary court hearing yesterday at which he spoke only to confirm that he understood the two charges against him.
A charge sheet said a woman named Sumarti Ningsih was killed on October 27, indicating she was the woman whose body was found in the suitcase. It said the other person was an “unknown female.”
Indonesian Consulate spokeswoman Sam Aryadi said Sumarti came from Cilacap in Central Java. He said the consulate was working with police to find out more about the second victim. Eni Lestari, an adviser with the Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Hong Kong, also indicated that the second woman was 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 Aryadi, who added that 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 at Eastern Magistrates’ Court, the two murder charges were read to Jutting, who had thick stubble and wore black pants and a black T-shirt with “New York” and “Champions” written on it. When asked if he understood each charge, he said “I do” twice in a calm voice. The judge granted his request to be remanded to prison detention rather than police custody. The reason for the request was unclear.
Martyn Richmond, a lawyer assigned to Jutting, complained that police refused to let him contact a lawyer of his choice or the British Consulate while in custody. He added that if Jutting’s requests were granted, he “may well co-operate” with a police reconstruction at the crime scene.
The case was adjourned to November 10.
Jutting is a graduate of Cambridge University, where he rowed for the Peterhouse College Boat Club and was secretary of the university’s history society.
He worked 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, a city of 7 million, has low crime rates and only 14 cases of homicide were reported in the first half of the year.
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