Cilacap: The parents of a young Indonesian woman murdered in Hong Kong called Tuesday 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, 23, was found on Saturday in a suitcase on the balcony of Rurik Jutting's upmarket apartment in the southern Chinese city.
"I am absolutely horrified, no mother could accept her child being hurt in such a terrible way," Suratmi, the mother of Ningsih, told AFP.
"My daughter did not deserve to die like this, she was still so young."
Jutting, a 29-year-old securities trader, who until recently worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, called police to his home in the Wanchai district in the early hours of Saturday.
Investigators found a naked woman, also Indonesian, 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 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 buried in Indonesia," he said.
- 'We are not rich' -
Her mother Suratmi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, backed the call for the death penalty, saying it would be appropriate for such a terrible crime.
The 49-year-old said that the family were saddened at reports that Ningsih was a sex worker as they had believed she was employed at a restaurant in Hong Kong.
"We are not rich. My daughter was a good girl. She was never rude to anyone. She would send home three million rupiah ($250) every month," she said.
Ningsih last transferred money to her father's bank account on October 22 and that was the last news her parents had from her.
Her family were farmers who could only afford to put their daughter through elementary school. She went to work in several Indonesian cities before moving to Hong Kong for the first time in 2011 to try to earn money to support her family.
Ningsih initially went to Hong Kong as a domestic worker and returned to the city on two occasions afterwards, for a stint in 2013 and this year. 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. They initially reported her age as 25.
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.
