A FRIEND of the man accused of murdering a South Korean student whose body was found in a lane near York has told a court of how they went shopping for a large suitcase.

Kyu Soo Kim, 32, is said to have killed two students by suffocating them with makeshift gags.

It is claimed he hid one body in a cupboard, and stuffed the other in a suitcase which he dumped at a roadside near York.

Hyung Gun Kim told the Old Bailey yesterday he went to a department store with the defendant to buy luggage.

He claimed Kim told him he needed a "big suitcase" to carry all of his girlfriend Mariko Ishimura's possessions in.

But he said they gave up because the baggage they looked at was too expensive.

Mr Kim, who is not related to the defendant, told the jury: "He suggested that we go and have a look at some suitcases.

"I asked him why, and he said Mariko had a lot of belongings and he was going to get a suitcase for her."

The court has heard that Kim murdered tenants Hyo Jung Jin, 21, and In Hea Song, 22, by gagging them with socks and wrapping the tape round their mouths.

The prosecution has alleged that Miss Jin, a student in France, was murdered in October 2001, only days after arriving at Kim's guesthouse in Holborn, central London. Her body was then forced into a large suitcase, which was dumped 212 miles away in a country lane at Askham Richard.

Miss Song disappeared a month later and was found on March 15 last year in a sealed cupboard at another guesthouse in Augusta Street, Poplar, east London.

A pathologist told the court that Miss Jin died a " very unusual death" when she was suffocated in a mask of tape.

Professor Christopher Milroy said that personally, he had never come across the extremely rare way the 21-year-old had died, but had encountered it during a professional presentation in America.

It was not unique, but "very, very unusual", he told the jury.

Kim, of Eagle Street, Holborn, denies two charges of murder.

The trial continues.

Updated: 10:46 Tuesday, March 11, 2003