Reuters - A British
banker was jailed for life on Tuesday for the "sickening" murders of
two Indonesian women he tortured in his Hong Kong apartment in what the judge
said was one of the most horrifying cases the Chinese-ruled territory has
known.
Rurik Jutting,
31, a former Bank of America employee, had denied murdering Sumarti Ningsih,
23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 26, in 2014 on the grounds of diminished
responsibility due to alcohol and drug abuse and sexual disorders.
He had pleaded
guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in a case that gripped world media
due to graphic video footage seen by the jury and the brutality of the
killings.
The jury
unanimously found Jutting guilty of murder and he was sentenced to life in
prison.
His lawyers
have said he will apply to serve his sentence in Britain, the former colonial
power in Hong Kong, where prisoners can in some cases apply for parole after a
fixed number of years.
Judge Michael
Stuart-Moore agreed for an application to be filed, but said he would inform
the authorities in Britain exactly what they would be dealing with and urged
caution against falling for Jutting's "superficial charm".
Cambridge-educated
Jutting, wearing a blue shirt, looked down and showed no emotion when the
verdict was read out in an open courtroom, packed with international and local
journalists.
It took the
jury, made up of four women and five men, around six hours, including a lunch
break, to reach its decision.
In closing
remarks, the judge described Jutting as the "archetypal sexual
predator" who represented an extreme danger to women, especially in the
sex trade.
He cautioned
that the possibility of a repeat crime would have been very likely.
The murders
were even more damning because Jutting had been given every possible material
advantage in life from a very privileged upbringing to a great career and
immense pay cheque, the judge said.
"They are
sickening in the extreme and beyond a normal person's imagination... There are
insufficient superlatives to describe what he did."
Ningsih's
61-year-old father, Ahmad Kaliman, said he thought the verdict was appropriate.
"I want
to say thank you to Hong Kong’s legal system for what they've done," he
told Reuters TV calmly in his village in central Java. "I hope we can get
compensation to support (Ningsih's son)."
Ningsih leaves
a seven-year-old son.
In a statement
read out by Jutting's lawyer, Tim Owen, Jutting said he was haunted daily by
what he had done.
"The evil
can never be remedied by me, nevertheless... I am so sorry. I am sorry beyond
words," Owen said, citing Jutting.
Jutting, the
grandson of a British policeman in Hong Kong and a local Chinese woman, had
argued cocaine and alcohol disorders as well as personality disorders of sexual
sadism and narcissism had impaired his ability to control his behavior.
The prosecution
rejected this, stating Jutting was able to form judgments and exercise
self-control before and after the killings, filming his torture of Ningsih on
his iPhone as well hours of footage in which he discussed the murders, binging
on cocaine and his graphic sexual fantasies.
Jutting
exhaled deeply as he walked out of the courtroom, flanked by three police
guards.
Reuters
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