A court in Hong Kong remanded a British man in custody after charging him with the murder of an Indonesian woman at a waterfall in a park in the financial hub.
Jamie Tzewee Chapman, 34, appeared at the Eastern Court on Friday but did not enter a plea. His lawyer did not request bail either.
Mr Chapman and his wife, a Hongkonger, were arrested upon their return to the city from mainland China.
His wife had been held on suspicion of assisting an offender before being released on bail pending further investigation, the local police said on Thursday.
Police said Mr Chapman and the Indonesian woman, Novitasari Mevi, went to the Waterfall Bay Park in Pok Fu Lam on Sunday evening. He was seen getting into a taxi alone after 40 minutes and immediately left Hong Kong, according to police.
Residents spotted the woman's body floating in the pond below the waterfall on Monday morning, police said. She had been struck in the head and drowned.
An initial autopsy report revealed the cause of the death to be “asphyxiation by drowning” but she also sustained head injuries.
“We found so many unreasonable things related to the arrested man,” police superintendent Sin Kwok-ming was quoted by The Telegraph as saying.
“He didn’t report to the police and immediately left Hong Kong after the incident. Some evidence related to him had disappeared too,” he said.
Principal Magistrate Don So Man-lung adjourned the case till 24 January to allow time for further investigation. “In the meantime, you will stay in jail,” he told Mr Chapman.
Ms Novitasari was a 25-year-old domestic worker in Hong Kong but did not work for the suspect, police said.
She was from Cilacap in Central Java province, Judha Nugraha, the director of protection of Indonesian citizens and legal entities, said from Indonesia.
Her employment agency and the Indonesian consulate will organise the repatriation of her body and the consulate general will continue to monitor the investigation, he said.
