Former Banker Jutting Pleads Not Guilty to Murder Charges (2)

(Bloomberg) -- Rurik Jutting, a former Bank of America Corp. employee, pleaded not guilty to murder on Monday, nearly two years after police found two women dead in his Hong Kong apartment.

“Extremely disturbing” evidence, including Jutting’s mobile-phone recording of the torture of one of his victims, will feature in the case, Deputy High Court Judge Michael Stuart-Moore warned jurors on Monday.

Jutting’s alleged cocaine use will also feature, with the prosecution alleging that 26 bags of the drug were found in his apartment and citing Jutting as saying after the first of the two killings: “I definitely could not have done that without cocaine.”

The trial of the former British banker and Cambridge University graduate, accused of murdering two Indonesian women, is scheduled to run through Nov. 11. The bodies of Sumarti Ningsih, 23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 29, were found at his apartment in the Wan Chai district on Nov. 1, 2014. Jutting was 29 when charged.

Tim Owen, the defendant’s lawyer, said Jutting had been suffering from a personality disorder. Jutting said he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility -- a plea rejected by the prosecution. He also admitted a charge related to preventing the lawful burial of a body.

Offering Money

In both cases, Jutting offered money for the women to come to his apartment, before slashing their throats, according to John Reading, for the prosecution. Jutting tortured Ningsih over three days from Oct. 25, while Mujiasih went to his home on Oct. 31, the lawyer said.

The former banker recorded himself talking about the first killing and what he should do -- including giving himself up, killing himself or hiding the body then flying to the U.K., Reading said. After the second killing, he told the police that he had used up the remainder of his cocaine, the lawyer said.

A LinkedIn profile for Jutting showed he worked at Merrill Lynch’s Asian structured equity finance and trading division, starting in July 2013 in Hong Kong. On Friday, Bank of America spokesman Paul Scanlon declined to comment on the trial, or on Jutting’s employment at the bank.

The case is Hong Kong Special Administrative Region v Jutting Rurik George Caton, HCCC 183/2015, Hong Kong High Court.

(Updates with judge’s comment in second paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Cathy Chan in Hong Kong at kchan14@bloomberg.net, Frederik Balfour in Hong Kong at fbalfour@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Paul Panckhurst, Fion Li

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