British businessman to remain in custody on charge of killing Indonesian woman in Hong Kong
An unidentified person wearing a hood is escorted by police officers to a park for video reconstruction of a crime scene where a Southeast Asian woman's body was found Monday at a waterfall inside the park in Hong Kong, on Oct 30, 2024. (Photo: AP/Bertha Wang)
HONG KONG: A British businessman was ordered on Friday (Nov 1) to remain in custody after being charged with murder in Hong Kong over the death of an Indonesian woman at a park waterfall.
Jamie Tzewee Chapman, 34, did not enter a plea in the court appearance and his lawyer did not request bail. The judge adjourned the case to January to allow time for further investigation.
Chapman and his wife, a Hong Konger, were arrested on Tuesday when they returned 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, police said on Thursday.
Police said Chapman and the Indonesian woman went together to a waterfall in a park in Pok Fu Lam on Hong Kong Island on Sunday night. He left alone in a taxi half about an hour later, and residents spotted the woman's body in the pond below the waterfall on Monday morning, police said. She had been struck in the head and drowned.
"We found so many unreasonable things related to the arrested man. He didn't report to the police and immediately left Hong Kong after the incident. Some evidence related to him had disappeared too," police superintendent Sin Kwok-ming said on Tuesday.
"This case involves a person's life, and we take that very seriously. We will carefully unravel every detail to uncover the truth and to bring justice to the deceased," Sin said.
Mevi Novitasari, who was about 25, was a domestic worker in Hong Kong but did not work for the suspect, police have said.
She was from Cilacap in Central Java province, Judha Nugraha, director of protection of Indonesian citizens and legal entities, said from Indonesia.
Her employment agency and the Indonesian consulate will facilitate the repatriation of the remains and the consulate general will continue to monitor the investigation, he said.
