British banker Rurik Jutting was yesterday found guilty of the horrifying murder of two Indonesian women at his upscale Hong Kong apartment and jailed for life, in a case the judge said was “sickening in the extreme.”
Cambridge graduate Jutting, 31, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Sumarti Ningsih and Seneng Mujiasih two years ago on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but a jury at the Hong Kong High Court returned unanimous guilty verdicts.
“This must rank as one of the more horrifying murder cases ever to come to court in Hong Kong,” Judge Michael Stuart-Moore told the court, describing Jutting’s actions as “sickening in the extreme and beyond a normal person’s imagination.”
“You go to prison for life,” he said, at the conclusion of a case that shocked the territory.
Murder in Hong Kong comes with a mandatory life sentence.
Jutting remained almost expressionless, breathing out heavily as he left the dock.
In a grueling 10-day trial the jury heard how Jutting became obsessed with slavery, rape and torture, and played out those fantasies with his first victim, Ningsih.
Fueled by cocaine and alcohol, he tortured her for three days and recorded parts of her torment on his iPhone.
Jutting killed Ningsih by slashing her throat in his bathroom and then stuffed her body into a suitcase, which he stored on his balcony.
The court heard that he had cut her neck with a serrated knife in the shower after forcing her to lick a toilet bowl.
In self-recorded ranting on his iPhone after that murder, Jutting described his attacks on Ningsih using pliers, sex toys and a belt.
Days later he murdered Mujiasih, slashing her throat in his living room.
He had prepared to torture her, but killed her quickly when she began to scream after spotting a rope gag by his sofa.
Both women were found dead in Jutting’s flat on Nov. 1, 2014, after he called the police.
Ningsih and Mujiasih had gone to Jutting’s apartment after he offered them money for sex.
Jutting’s defense argued that his control had been impaired by his use of cocaine and alcohol, combined with narcissistic personality and sexual sadism disorders.
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