A LANDLORD accused of murdering two young students used his girlfriend's artistic gift tape to mask and suffocate one whose body was found in a suitcase near York, a court heard.

Mariko Ishimura said she had asked Kyu Soo Kim not to make general use of the Gilbert and George tape which she had bought at the Tate Modern gallery in London, and had hidden it away.

"I treated the tape as special. He seemed to be using it as normal tape. I hid it, but it was not where I put it, so presumably he might have found it," the 23-year-old hairdresser from Japan told the Old Bailey yesterday.

The prosecution alleges that Kim used the tape to suffocate 21-year-old Hyo Jung Jin, a French literature graduate, from Korea, who was staying at his premises while on a sightseeing tour.

She was found in the foetal position in a suitcase which Kim had left in a country lane at Askham Richard, near York.

The Tate Modern tape had been wound round her head covering both her nose and mouth.

Kim, 31, from Holborn, central London, denies murdering Miss Jin between October 25 and 28, and In Hea Song, 22, between December 3 and 8, 2001.

The hearing continues

Updated: 10:17 Saturday, March 08, 2003