Father of Indonesian murdered in Hong Kong urges death for killer

The father of a young Indonesian woman murdered in Hong Kong called on Tuesday (04/11/2014) for her "sadistic" killer to be put to death, a day after a British banker appeared in court accused of killing her and a second woman.

The mutilated and decomposing body of Sumarti Ningsih, in her 20s, was found on Saturday in a suitcase on the balcony of Rurik Jutting's upmarket apartment in the southern Chinese city.

Jutting, a 29-year-old securities trader, who until recently worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, had called police to his home in the Wanchai district in the early hours of Saturday.

Investigators found a naked woman with knife wounds to her neck and buttocks in the living room of the flat, on the 31st floor of a plush residential block.

The body of Ningsih, who had a young son and was from a poor farming family, was discovered hours later as police searched the apartment - court documents state that she was killed on October 27.

Her father spoke to AFP of his shock and anger at the death of his daughter, who was one of four siblings and had been providing financial support to her family back in Indonesia.

"I want the murderer of my child to be sentenced to death. He killed her, sadistically, so he must be put to death," said Ahmad Kaliman, 58, speaking to AFP in Cilacap, a port town on the south coast of Java.

Hong Kong does not impose the death penalty.

"I also plead for the governments of Indonesia and Hong Kong to return our child's body as soon as possible. I want her to be be buried in Indonesia," he added.

He said the family had been informed by one of their daughter's acquaintances in Hong Kong that she had been killed.

"We were informed by telephone that our daughter was murdered. I was very shocked, especially when I was informed that it was hard to identify the body," he said.

He said that his daughter had transferred some money to his bank account on October 22 but he had not heard anything from her since.

Police reportedly believe the victims were sex workers, but Ningsih had told her parents she was working in a restaurant in Hong Kong.

Ningsih's parents were farmers who could only afford to put their daughter through elementary school.

She went to work in several Indonesian cities, including the capital Jakarta, before moving to Hong Kong for the first time in 2011 to try to earn money to support her family.

Her father said that she initially went to Hong Kong as a domestic worker. She had returned to the city on two occasions since then, for a stint in 2013 and this year, he said.

He said that she had a five-year-old son who now lives with his grandparents in Cilacap.

Consulate officials said Ningsih had come to Hong Kong on September 1 and overstayed her one-month tourist visa.

The Indonesian consulate confirmed to AFP Tuesday that the other victim found in the apartment was Seneng Mujiasih, 29 - who went by the name Jesse Lorena - and was also Indonesian.

She had been working as a domestic worker, the consulate said, but her employment visa had run out in 2012.

Jutting appeared in court for the first time on Monday, showing no emotion as he listened to the charges. He was taken to jail to await his next hearing on November 10.

He was a pupil at the exclusive English boarding school Winchester College before studying history and law at Cambridge University, with former classmates saying he excelled academically.

Wanchai is known for its late-night drinking holes popular with expatriate revellers, and is home to a thriving red light district where sex workers, many of them from Southeast Asia, ply their trade.

Hong Kong, a city of seven million, has low crime rates and only 14 cases of homicide were reported in the first half of the year. - AFP