Killings were manslaughter, not murder, banker’s barrister tells Hong Kong jury
Rurik Jutting had descended into homicidal madness and was not in control when he attacked the two Indonesian women, defence counsel Tim Owen argues in closing submission
A British banker asked a jury on Friday to return a verdict of manslaughter for his savage killing of two Indonesian women as the court was told how his life had entered a catastrophic decline into homicidal madness before he slit their throats.
Tim Owen QC said his client Rurik Jutting, 31, who has denied murder, was the only one to blame for the “unbelievably cruel, savage violence” that ended the lives of Sumarti Ningsih, 23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 26, in 2014.
But he called for a verdict of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility, which he said was an acknowledgement to mental frailty, as he argued that Jutting was suffering multiple mental disorders that rendered his mind abnormal and substantially impaired his ability to control his actions at the time.
“He’s not seeking a way to avoid responsibility, I cannot emphasise that point further,” Owen said, addressing the nine-strong jury for the first time in closing submissions at the High Court. “The verdict of manslaughter is not a soft option.”
He introduced his client as a young man who seemed to have everything going for him – well educated with an IQ of 137 that placed him in the top 1 per cent of the population and a big salary running into millions of Hong Kong dollars.