Foreign 'banker' arrested after double murder in Hong Kong

Police in Hong Kong say they have arrested a foreign man in connection with the murder of two women.

They said on Saturday that a 29-year-old had been detained, but that no charges had yet been pressed. They declined to give the man's name or nationality, but according to local media, the man is a banker at Bank of American Merrill Lynch.

A spokesman for that company confirmed to Reuters news agency on Sunday that, until recently, it had had an employee by the name mentioned by local media in Hong Kong. Bank of America gave no further details.

Britain's Foreign Office in London said on Sunday that a British national had been arrested in Hong Kong, but gave no further details.

Two women were found dead in an apartment on the thirty-first storey of a building in the high-end district of Wan Chai, which is known for its night life. Police found the body of one of the victims stuffed in a suitcase on the balcony and the other, a foreign woman aged between 25 and 30, was found outside the apartment - the body having sustained injuries. Local media said the women were prostitutes and that the man was British.

Police said the man who was arrested had informed the authorities on Saturday and asked them to investigate.

"It's very shocking because we never expected something like this to happen in Hong Kong, especially in the same building that I'm living in," a banker told Reuters.

Hong Kong is a bustling city of seven million residents. One of Asia's largest financial hubs, it has a very low crime rate. According to government statistics, there were 14 homicides between January and June this year. Hong Kong's most high-profile murder involving foreign nationals was the case of the "Milkshake Murder" in 2003, when an American housewife clubbed her high-flying banker husband to death after slipping sedatives into his milkshake.

sb/ksb (Reuters, AP)