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Hong Kong – A British banker accused of killing two Indonesian women whose mutilated bodies were found in his Hong Kong apartment was on Monday ruled fit to stand trial next year after psychiatric tests.
Judge Bina Chainrai ruled that Rurik Jutting, who has undergone two weeks of examinations at the maximum-security Siu Lam psychiatric centre, should be tried for the murder of Seneng Mujiasih and Sumarti Ningsih.
Dressed in the same black T-shirt he had worn for his first appearance in the court two weeks ago, the 29-year-old Jutting stood impassively in the dock as the judge made her ruling to a packed, but silent, courtroom.
Chainrai then adjourned proceedings until 6 July after prosecutors said they needed several months to forensically examine nearly 200 items of evidence.
Jutting, who until recently worked as a securities trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is accused of killing the two young women whose bodies were found in his upmarket flat earlier this month.
Mujiasih and Ningsih's bodies were discovered after the Cambridge graduate called police to his flat in the city's Wanchai district in the early hours of 1 November.
Seneng was found naked in the living room, with knife wounds on her neck and buttocks.
Sumarti's decaying body was found hours later by police, stuffed into a suitcase on the balcony. Investigators believe she was killed on 27 October.
Police are investigating whether the two women were sex workers after cocaine and sex toys were found in the apartment, just a few streets away from Hong Kong's red-light district, where Jutting was reportedly a regular.
