A British banker accused of killing two supposed prostitutes in Hong Kong is currying favour with prison inmates by offering legal advice, according to reports.
British tabloid the Mirror claims to have “an insider” at Lai Chi Kok Detention Centre who says 30-year-old Rurik Jutting is staving off attacks by helping others and going by his middle name, “George”.
Jutting is even said to be offering advice to a pianist who killed and ate his parents.
“Life as a Westerner can be very difficult [in jail]. He faces daily threats from people capable of horrific crimes. The only way to stay safe is to keep them on side,” the source apparently told the newspaper.
“He’s very friendly, he’s very upbeat. He’s been helping others with the cases because he’s a got a good legal understanding.”
Jutting, a former banker for Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, quit his job just days before calling police to his Wan Chai apartment on Nov. 1 last year.
There, officers found the bodies of two Indonesian women, Sumarti Ningsih, 23, and Jesse Lorena Ruri, 29, both of whom are reported to have been sex workers. Jutting is accused of knifing the women to death and leaving one to decompose in a suitcase on his balcony.
The source told the Mirror that the banker receives daily visits from expat friends who bring him chocolate and biscuits, and that he is “hoping against hope to have the charge changed to manslaughter”.
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