UK banker murder victim 'felt haunted' days before death

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November 8, 2016 2:00 PM

He tortured Ningsih for three days before slashing her throat and stuffing the body into a suitcase.

An Indonesian migrant worker holds up a placard during a vigil for slain colleagues Seneng Mujiasih and Sumarti Ningsih in Hong Kong

An Indonesian woman brutally murdered by a British banker in his upmarket Hong Kong apartment told her family days before her death she felt haunted and threatened, her father said Tuesday.

Sumarti Ningsih was one of two Indonesian women murdered by Rurik Jutting, 31, who was jailed for life for carrying out the killings in a cocaine-fuelled rampage which the judge called "sickening in the extreme".

He tortured Ningsih for three days before slashing her throat and stuffing the body into a suitcase. Days later, the Bank of America worker picked up Seneng Mujiasih, intending to play out the same sick fantasies, but killed her when she started screaming.

Speaking after the Cambridge University graduate was sent to prison Tuesday, Ningsih's father Ahmad Kaliman welcomed the guilty verdict and thanked the jury in Hong Kong.

He also revealed new details, saying Ningsih had called him -- sounding anxious about the attentions of an Englishman -- several days before her murder.

"She told me that she was being haunted and threatened by an Englishman," Kaliman, 61, told AFP, speaking from the family home in Cilacap on Indonesia's main island of Java.

"She wanted to go home, leave Hong Kong because she felt threatened by an Englishman... Well it must have been Rurik, this Rurik guy."

In a gruelling 10-day trial, the Hong Kong jury heard how Jutting became obsessed with slavery, rape and torture -- fantasies he had acted out on Ningsih.

Ningsih's mother Suratmi, 51, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, also welcomed the verdict, saying Jutting had "tortured my daughter".

"I lost my child and the pain will never be cured," she told AFP.

Both victims, who were in their 20s, were from poor farming families and used to financially support their relatives back in Indonesia.

Ningsih's family urged the Indonesian government to help them seek compensation from Jutting to help support the murdered woman's seven-year-old son, who lives with them in Indonesia.

"She was the breadwinner. Who else will support her son? Rurik has to be responsible," Kaliman said.

The family of Mujiasih said in a statement they had been "devastated" by her death as she was the main support for her parents, and they were also seeking compensation.

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