Updated 7pm
HONG KONG POLICE have charged a 29-year-old British man who worked for Bank of America Merrill Lynch with murder after the grisly discovery of two female corpses, including one in a suitcase, in his upmarket apartment.
The women were found dead on the 31st floor of the residential block in the district of Wanchai in the early hours of Saturday morning, while many locals were out celebrating Halloween.
Police said in a statement today that a holding charge of two counts of murder had been laid against the man, adding that he would appear in court later in the day.
He was identified by local press as British expatriate Rurik Jutting. “A person with that name previously worked at this firm,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch spokesman Paul Scanlon told AFP.
The man was arrested after he called police to his flat on Saturday where they found a naked woman with knife wounds to her neck and buttock in the living room.
The other woman was decaying inside a suitcase on the balcony.
The woman found in the living room, described by police as a foreigner aged between 25 and 30, was declared dead at the scene, with the cause thought to be a cut to her throat.
Police were scouring thousands of photographs stored on a mobile phone seized from the suspect, including some showing one of the corpses wrapped in a carpet inside a suitcase on the balcony, the South China Morning Post reported.
Body in a ‘travel suitcase’
The victims are believed by police to be sex workers of Southeast Asian origin, local reports said.
A resident described the smell that had been emanating from the building as “disgusting”.
“It was the smell of a dead body. Maybe the police were moving it,” the man, who lived on the 11th floor and refused to give his name, told AFP.
Officers said earlier maggots were found in the corpse hidden in a suitcase.
Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed that a British national had been arrested in the southern Chinese city.
“We are in touch with the local police and stand ready to provide consular assistance,” it said.
Briefing reporters late Saturday, police assistant district commander Wan Siu-hung said: “There was a female that was unconscious, with knife injuries and was naked.”
Police then discovered the body of the second woman on the apartment’s balcony, he said.
“From what we can see it was intentionally hidden because it was put in a travel suitcase,” the officer said.
“This body belonged to a person who has passed away for quite some time.”
Contains reporting by AFP
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