No new trial for jailed Briton in Hong Kong

HONG KONG: A former British banker who was jailed for life in 2016 for the murder of two Indonesian women will not be given a new trial, Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

Rurik Jutting, 32, a former Bank of America employee, had denied murdering Sumarti Ningsih, 23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 26, in his luxury apartment in 2014.

Jutting’s lawyer Gerard McCoy had appealed for a re-trial, arguing that the deputy judge, Michael Stuart-Moore, had “wrongly directed” the jury by narrowing down the scope of the defence case for diminished responsibility.

McCoy said Jutting showed severe traits of psychiatric disorders, far beyond the normal range and was therefore not in control of his actions.

The three judges on the court of appeal, however, said in their judgment that Stuart- Moore had only offered direction to the jury as advice, without mandating it.

“There is no merit whatsoever in this ground of appeal,” the judges said in their ruling.

Jutting’s defence team had previously argued that cocaine and alcohol abuse had impaired his ability to control his behaviour.

The prosecution rejected this, stating that Jutting was able to form judgements and exercise self- control before and after the killings, filming his torture of Ningsih on his mobile phone as well as hours of footage in which he discussed the murders, binging on cocaine and his graphic sexual fantasies.

Jutting is the grandson of a British policeman in Hong Kong and a Chinese woman. – Reuters/African News Agency (ANA)

Rurik Jutting