British banker remanded over Hong Kong murders

A British banker has appeared in court in connection with the gruesome murders of two women in Hong Kong.

Rurik George Caton Jutting was arrested after the bodies of the women — reportedly sex workers from south east Asia — were found at his flat in the Wan Chai district of the former British colony early Saturday morning.

One victim died six days before her body was discovered in a suitcase.

The charges were read to Jutting, who was remanded in custody to appear again next Monday.

Martyn Richmond, a temporary lawyer assigned to him, complained that police refused to let him contact a lawyer of his choice or the British Consulate while in custody.

Richmond said that if Jutting’s requests were granted, he “may well co-operate” with a police reconstruction at the crime scene

The 29-year-old is a Cambridge-educated investment banker who had been employed at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

He moved to Hong Kong from London in July last year and is understood to have quit his highly paid job in the last few days.

Before leaving, Jutting appeared to have set a chilling automatic response for his email account at the bank which seemed to imply that he is an “insane psychopath”.

The email response read: “I am out of the office. Indefinitely. For urgent enquiries, or indeed any enquiries, please contact someone who is not an insane psychopath. For escalation please contact God, though suspect the devil will have custody (Last line only really worked if I had followed through).”

Jutting’s alleged killing spree ended when he called police at 3.42am on Halloween night.

CCTV footage from his building showed him returning with a “sexily dressed” woman, according to local press reports.

The first victim, named locally as Jesse Lorena Ruri, a Filipina prostitute in her 30s, was found in the 31st-floor apartment with wounds to her neck and buttock. She died soon afterwards.

Police discovered the body of the second woman, Sumarti Ningsih, 25, when officers found a suitcase on the balcony. She was killed on October 27.

A police source said: “She was nearly decapitated and her hands and legs had been bound with ropes. She was naked and wrapped in a towel before being stuffed into the suitcase.”