Death penalty urged for killer of sex workers

The family of one of two Indonesian sex workers found murdered in the Hong Kong flat of a British investment banker has called for their killer to be handed the death penalty.

Sumarti Ningsih, 23, was found dead in a suitcase at Cambridge-educated Rurik George Caton Jutting’s apartment in the city’s Wan Chai district on Saturday.

Police had been called to the property on Octover 31 and first found 29-year-old Seneng Mujiasih with wounds to her throat and buttocks. She died a short time later.

Jutting, 29 and originally from Cobham in Surrey, appeared in court yesterday charged with the murders and was remanded in custody.

Ningsih’s father, Ahmad Kaliman, said the women’s killer should be sentenced to death and pleaded for his daughter’s body to be returned home.

“I ask the government of Indonesia to help me return my daughter to me. She was an Indonesian citizen. Please help return her body as soon as possible,” he said.

“I was told she was killed, mutilated, and packaged into a suitcase. What can you do? This is fate.”

Kaliman said his daughter had travelled to Hong Kong on a tourist visa about two months ago. She was expected to return home to central Java in Indonesia on November 2, but was killed on October 27, six days before her body was discovered in an advanced state of decomposition.

It took officers eight hours to find her body in the suitcase on the balcony of Jutting’s flat in the 40-storey J Residence after attending to Ms Mujiasih.

Police said Ningsih was found with her hands and legs bound with ropes and had nearly been decapitated.