THE man accused of murdering two South Korean students today decided to change his plea over the murder of one of them.

While he continued to deny In Hea Song's murder, he pleaded guilty to her manslaughter.

But the prosecution refused to accept Kyu Soo Kim's plea, and are continuing to pursue both murder charges.

The Old Bailey trial heard that the students - one whose body was dumped in a suitcase near York - may have been tortured for their bank card PIN numbers before being suffocated.

The opening of the trial of Kim, the 32-year-old South Korean student accused of murdering the pair, heard how Hyo Jung Jin, 21, who was murdered between October 25 and 28, 2001, and In Hea Song, 22, who was murdered between December 3 and 8, 2001, were "murdered in the most chilling and distressing of circumstances".

Kim denies the charges.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw described to the court the macabre method used to end their lives.

He said: "When almost naked and in a state of undress, the victim was bound with packing tape around the wrists and then packing tape was wrapped tightly round the lower part of the face, covering the mouth and nose and, unable to breathe, they suffocated to death.

"I am afraid each of these young women appears to have been alive when this took place. One hopes their suffering didn't last for too long."

He alleged that Kim had been the person who killed both women and had drawn money out of their bank accounts, using their cash cards after their deaths.

He said: "This could only be achieved if the PIN numbers were known. This would indicate the killings were also deliberately extended so that information could be extracted from the victims before they eventually died."

He said Kim had been described as "seductive". But he said if there had been any sexual activity, neither victim showed any signs of a sex assault and no semen had been found.

He said the motive could have been financial, as the defendant was massively in debt and had borrowed money from one of the tenants of two properties he let to Korean students visiting the country - one in Eagle Street, Holborn, in central London and a maisonette in Augusta Street, Poplar, east London.

But he offered a third and most distressing possibility.

He said: "It could be suggested that he achieved a sadistic form of pleasure from the form of killing, which was so slow and deliberate."

Jin had been studying French at a school in Lyon in France on October 24, 2001. She went on a sightseeing trip to London. She stayed at the defendant's address in Eagle Street and was last seen alive on October 26.

Mr Laidlaw said: "It seems likely, although it's impossible to be precise, that at some point during that evening, when the defendant's girlfriend and others were away from the flat, she was murdered."

He said Jin's blood had been found on the carpet and walls of the bedroom where she slept, which suggested it was here that she was killed.

Her body had been forced into a large suitcase and more blood had been found on a carpet in the bottom of a wardrobe in the bedroom where it appeared the suitcase had been stored.

Mr Laidlaw said that on October 30, 2001, the defendant hired a Peugeot car from a firm in Camden, north London and headed north up the M1.

When he returned the car it had done 655 miles, which the prosecution alleged was sufficient to have made the 424-mile round trip to the country lane near Askham Richard, York, where the suitcase was dumped.

He said a forensic examination had revealed Jin's blood in the boot in the same sort of pattern as had been found in the wardrobe.

He claimed: "There can be no dispute that the defendant used that car to take the suitcase with Jin's body in it up to North Yorkshire."

The suitcase had been seen by a number of people from November 2, 2001, but police were not alerted to it until November 18.

The distinctive tape with which she had been bound and gagged bore a distinctive design produced for the four Tate art galleries.

The trial continues.

Updated: 15:30 Wednesday, March 05, 2003