British banker Rurik Jutting was so consumed by his personality disorders and addictions that he was not in control of his actions when he killed two women in his Hong Kong apartment, a psychiatrist said at his trial yesterday.
Jutting, 31, has pleaded not guilty to two murder charges, instead pleading guilty to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility — which was rejected by the prosecution.
Cambridge graduate Jutting is accused of murdering Sumarti Ningsih, 23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 26, two years ago, allegdly slashing their throats after saying he would pay them for sex.
Photo: AP
He allegedly tortured Ningsih inside his apartment for three days before killing her and stuffing her body in a suitcase found on his balcony.
The prosecution grilled defense witness Richard Latham, a forensic psychiatrist from London, as they sought to argue Jutting was in control of his decisions at that time.
Jutting had said he had killed Ningsih, his first victim, because she might report him, which was a logical reason, prosecution counsel John Reading said.
“I suggest to you that he was in control of himself,” Reading said.
Latham said Jutting’s decisions to kill were impaired by his use of cocaine and alcohol, combined with sexual sadism and narcissistic personality disorders.
“I think it’s wrong to say that he had a completely ordinary level of control,” Latham told the court.
Reading said that Jutting’s shopping trips to buy rope, a hammer and other implements with which he meant to torture Mujiasih, his second victim, showed “significant planning.”
However, Latham said Jutting’s behavior was likely driven by the desire to be in control and cause harm for sexual pleasure.
“In relation to killing [Mujiasih], that likely wasn’t his intention,” he said.
Jutting was so severely dependent on drugs and alcohol it would have been almost impossible for him to resist his craving to take them — his consumption was “close to automatic and involuntary,” Latham said.
The court heard how Jutting’s life had spiraled in the years leading up to the killings.
Defense counsel Tim Owen said Jutting had felt sidelined after being transferred to Hong Kong from London in 2013.
He had been flagged as a serious risk to his employer, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, over a possible violation of regulations linked to marketing of a tax product.
Jutting’s work was being monitored and on one occasion he was unable to turn up to the London office in 2014 during a trip back home, after taking too much cocaine, Owen said, adding that as an excuse, he told his employers he had HIV.
He had been seeking out sex workers, including men, Owen said.
After killing Mujiasih, Jutting had called his boss and said: “I’m in a lot of trouble, you have to do something about the bank’s reputation,” Owen said.
Defense witness Derek Perkins, a British psychologist, told the court that Jutting’s life was “out of control, it was chaotic.”
Perkins said the underlying issue was his personality disorder, which made him unable to cope with the problems he created.
His sexual sadism quickly escalated in the two to three years before the killings, Perkins said, adding that the coming together of his disorders led him to engage in “horrific behavior.”
Perkins said Jutting had been shocked at what he had done to Ningsih and that killing her had not been part of his original plan, which was to act out fantasies inspired by violent pornography.
“Killing wasn’t part of the culmination of that fantasy,” Perkins said.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including