British banker found guilty of Hong Kong murders

A British banker has been jailed for life after being found guilty of killing two Indonesian women in a Hong Kong murder trial that the judge described as “one of the most horrifying ever” in the city.

A jury of four women and five men on Tuesday rejected Rurik Jutting’s plea of not guilty to two counts of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Jutting, who was employed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch at the time of the first killing on October 27 2014, had earlier entered a guilty plea for manslaughter that was rejected by the prosecution.

The Cambridge graduate was found guilty of the two murders as part of a drug and alcohol-fuelled binge. He paid both women for sex.

Jutting’s first victim, 23-year-old Sumarti Ningsih, was tortured for three days before her murder, the court was told. Seneng Mujiasih, 26, was killed in the same fashion – Jutting slit their throats – four days later.

Deputy High Court judge Michael Stuart-Moore said in his sentencing: “The defendant is the archetypal sexual predator. When he is affected by cocaine and alcohol, as he was on in both these murders, he represents an extreme danger to women, particularly in the sex trade.”

Before sentencing, a statement by Jutting was read by his defence in which he said he had no objection to the verdict.

“I accept this as just and appropriate punishment. The evil I have inflicted can never be remedied by me in words or actions. Nevertheless, for whatever it may be worth . . . I am sorry, I am sorry beyond words,” the statement said.

Justice Stuart-Moore dismissed Jutting’s apology and told the court: “The defendant has shown not a shred of remorse for what he has done. The closest he came . . . was when he told the police he felt sorry for the victims’ families.”

In statements outside the court, the families of the two victims said they would be seeking compensation. Both women, who regularly sent money home, were described as their family’s main breadwinners.

Over the two-week trial, the jury were shown dozens of video clips filmed by Jutting, including part of his three-day torture of Ms Ningsih.

They also included scenes from hours of video filmed on Jutting’s phone in the days between the two deaths, in which he mused on the killing and his cocaine and alcohol habits, as well as detailing increasingly violent sexual fantasies.

The bodies of the two women were found by police in Jutting’s luxury apartment in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district after he had alerted police in a 999 call, which was played in court.

Tim Owen QC, defending, told the court that in addition to his client’s consumption of alcohol and cocaine, Jutting was under immense stress in his job.

Jutting was transferred to Hong Kong by his bank while some of his work in Europe was being investigated, and he had as a result been flagged by his bosses as a “serious risk”, Mr Owen told the court. The pressure of the extra monitoring that he faced reduced him to tears, the jury was told, and his attendance at work grew patchy.

In one of his videos, Jutting described himself as “Rurik George Caton Jutting. Vice-president, head of structured equity finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, newly – soon to be – unemployed and part-time rapist and murderer.”

The court also heard that after killing Ms Ningsih, Rutting changed his office email out-of-office reply to read: “I am out of the office. Indefinitely. For urgent inquiries please contact someone who is not an insane psychopath.”

Richard Latham, a forensic psychiatrist called as a defence witness, told the court that Jutting had told him he had been abused as a student at Winchester College, an exclusive English private school.

Mr Latham said he believed the banker had suffered from several psychological disorders when he carried out the killings.