British banker Rurik Jutting fails to overturn double murder conviction in Hong Kong
Former British banker Rurik Jutting has lost an appeal against his conviction for double murder in Hong Kong.
His lawyers failed to convince the court that the trial judge in the Cambridge graduate's case had misdirected the jury on his “abnormal mind”.
Jutting, who was dressed in a blue shirt, nodded after he heard Fridays’ decision, the South China Morning Post reported.
The former Bank of America worker admitted brutally killing two Indonesian women in his upmarket apartment in 2014.
He denied murder because of his mental state and claimed “diminished responsibility” due to his abuse of alcohol and drugs, and his sexual disorders.
Defence lawyer Gerard McCoy argued during the appeal hearing in December that the judge during the court case in November 2016 had wrongly told the jury to look for mental "disorders" rather than the broader classification: "abnormality of the mind".
"The judge has wrongly and prescriptively directed the jury,” Mr McCoy said.
However, on Friday barrister John Reading SC, for Hong Kong's secretary of justice, told the three appeal judges that the judge's directions were “appropriate”, the SCMP said.
During his court case, graphic details of Jutting mutilating and torturing his victims, Sumarti Ningsih, 23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 26 emerged.
He tortured Ms Ningsih for three days before slashing her throat with a serrated knife and stuffing her body into a suitcase.
Profile | Rurik Jutting
Days later he picked up Ms Mujiasih and killed her when she started screaming.
Much of the women’s ordeal was filmed on his mobile phone and showed to those attending court during the trial.
Judge Michael Stuart-Moore told the court at the end of the trial: "This must rank as one of the more horrifying murder cases ever to come to court in Hong Kong.”
He described Jutting's actions as "sickening in the extreme and beyond a normal person's imagination.”
There was speculation in the media when Jutting started his trial that his aim was to serve his sentence in the UK.
