A British banker has lost an appeal against his convictions for murdering two Indonesian women at his Hong Kong apartment.
Rurik Jutting “abused and tortured” Sumarti Ningsih over several days prior to her death in October 2014, with her body found in a suitcase on the balcony of his property.
The body of his second victim – Seneng Mujiasih – was found in a pool of blood in the living room, her throat having been cut.
Jutting, formerly of Cobham in Surrey, was given a mandatory life sentence for the killings which the trial judge Michael Stuart-Moore called “one of the most horrifying murder cases to come to the courts in Hong Kong”.
The former Cambridge University graduate who worked for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch had sought to appeal against his conviction, with his representatives claiming the trial judge had misled the jury on points relating to his defence of diminished responsibility.
Appeal Court judges in Hong Kong said there was “no merit” in the grounds of appeal and dismissed the application.
“We are satisfied that the judge’s directions correctly applied the law to the evidence adduced at trial,” the ruling said.
Jutting moved to Hong Kong from London in July 2013 and is understood to have quit his highly paid job in the days before the deaths.His confessions, both on the iPhone and to the police, were more in the nature of a boast
The then 31-year-old had admitted the manslaughter of 23-year-old Ms Ningsih and Ms Mujiasih, 26, with his representatives saying he suffered from four mental disorders: alcohol abuse, cocaine abuse, sexual sadism disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.
At his sentencing hearing, Judge Stuart-Moore said: “During this trial, we have been made to dredge the very depths of depravity through the defendant’s descriptions of what he did during the three days of torture which he subjected his first victim to. That is Sumarti Ningsih and that is also before he killed her.
“He used cocaine and alcohol to fuel his sadistic fantasies, which he then turned into reality. He used dire threats. Amongst other things, he said that he was part of a gang of experts who tortured and killed people and he had done this many times before, and this so terrified that defenceless woman into believing that she would die if she did not allow the defendant to do whatever he wanted that she put up no resistance even to his most depraved acts.
“No wonder she was scared. At various points in monologues which he recorded on his iPhone, where he described some of the repulsive things he had forced his first victim to do, he described himself as evil and a monster, and neither description is adequate to bring home the true horror of what he did to that woman.”
Jutting recorded his thoughts about the first killing on his iPhone, saying he had enjoyed the experience and later told police he realised it was not going to be a one-off thing, court documents said.
“It had awoken, he said, something in him, and once it was opened, he knew there would be more,” the judge said.
In the killing of Ms Mujiasih, Jutting told police “I cut her and when she continued to struggle I continued to try and cut her more deeply”.
The judge said: “His confessions, both on the iPhone and to the police, were more in the nature of a boast, as if he were proud of what he had done, and in his monologues he hints at wanting the world to know what he had done.
“These things occurred at a time in the defendant’s life when he was so morally corrupted by pornography and drugs and alcohol and a general life of debauchery, with a huge salary to fund his deprivations.
“But, in the end, nothing short of a sadistic torturing of victims and killing of young women for the sheer enjoyment that it gave to himself could satisfy his sexual desires.”