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SCMP Reporter

ALEX Tsui Ka-kit's adviser was adamant: ''We know there is no way the ICAC want to appear at Legco; they will do everything they can to stop it. Everything. But you didn't get that from me.''   Within a week, Commissioner Bertrand de Speville announced that ''operational necessities'' were no longer a bar to ''public interest'' and he would at last reveal why he sacked Mr Tsui.

  This Wednesday, we shall find out if Mr Tsui's bluff has finally been called.

  The stakes don't come much higher. For Mr Tsui - once the highest-ranking local in ICAC history - public and legislative support for his sacking could see him sink without trace.

  He will need new thunder and good evidence if claims of racial double standards, cronyism and colonialism in Hong Kong's most powerful and secretive law enforcement body can be made to stick.

  For Mr de Speville, a man of severe reserve, it may mean destroying the ICAC's reputation in order to save it.

  More than anyone else, Mr de Speville knows why he had to sack Alex Tsui but, like Mr Tsui's claims, his reasons could be hard and damaging to prove.

  On Wednesday Mr de Speville himself and the closed colonial-style government he stands for will be on trial as much as Mr Tsui or anything else: no one has, after all, ever suggested Mr Tsui committed a crime.

  Mr de Speville must somehow describe a decision based on something nebulous; a breach of trust, a sudden loss of confidence and ICAC intelligence - things that are known but can't be proved.

  From what the South China Morning Post has been able to reveal, there is little doubt that given Mr de Speville's wide powers and the strict internal codes breached by Mr Tsui, the ICAC commissioner had the right to act as he did.

  Whether he should have used his powers against such a distinguished, high-ranking local officer is another matter.

  Wednesday's public washing of dirty linen could well come down to eager legislators questioning for the first time an ICAC Commissioner's ability to govern.

  Confidence is a key factor.

  Revealing his sudden decision two weeks ago to tell all, Mr de Speville said it was vital that a commissioner could take action to ensure ''complete confidence in the integrity of his officers''.

  The Post has revealed Mr de Speville told the Governor, the Executive Council and the ICAC watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Corruption, that that very confidence was breached when he discovered Mr Tsui had met Henfrey Tin in Macau last June.

  Mr Tin sits with Mr Tsui on the executive committee of the Hong Kong Boxing Association and had been interviewed by ICAC officers hours before the pair made a hastily arranged trip to Macau on boxing business.

  The meeting was never declared as standing orders said it should have been.

  Mr Tsui has since told the Post he had no idea at the time that Mr Tin, his friend of 20 years - which is as long as he was a member of the ICAC - had been called in to see Mr Tsui's colleagues at Murray Road.

  The late-night meeting in Macau was only discovered by a six-man team of crack ICAC internal investigators probing a twisted string of allegations involving triads and the Thai boxing world presented to the Commission in June.

  Mr Tin and Boxing Association president Hung Wing-wah now face the prospect of charges following an ICAC raid on a cigarette smuggling syndicate - an investigation which started after Mr Tsui's sacking and which is separate from the investigation in Junewhen Mr Tin was questioned over a $500,000 loan made to a friend.

  Will this be enough to satisfy Hong Kong's politicians while also heading off any new accusations from Mr Tsui?   As far as Wednesday's hearing is concerned, Mr de Speville's strengths lie in the fact that he is no slick, flashy investigator.

  ICAC chiefs are hoping his quiet air of decency, civility and reason will hold a certain cachet with the board of examining legislators as will the significance of a man of such depth finally speaking out.

  No one, after all, has ever branded him a fool as some of his former Law Department peers have been.

  Mr de Speville rose to Solicitor-General after a long legal life in private practice in the Hong Kong and British governments until he was called in the twilight of his career to head the Commission on the death of Peter Allen in February 1993.

  He possesses an astute legal mind, and has made a career from his ability to wield a verbal scalpel, saying a great deal with very little.

  He also had no part in Mr Tsui's promotion in 1992. He inherited that from Mr Allen.

  Mr Tsui, meanwhile, is seeking to clear his name, remove the tarnished from his career record and rescue the reputation of his sport. He has refused to go quietly and enjoy his enforced retirement.

  Just before his sacking, Mr Tsui was seen at the very top of an elite group of ICAC officers: young, flamboyant, all big suits, bracelets and Cuban heels.

  Shrewd, highly intelligent and ambitious, Mr Tsui was also known to demand exceptionally high standards of his troops.

  Personally in charge of internal monitoring and privy to every investigation file and covert operation - except the one against himself - he rigidly enforced standards set by the man he now considers his nemesis, ICAC operations director Jim Buckle.

  From day one, he has fought as an underdog against the secret monolith that is his former employer, alluding to the ''dark forces'' of racism and colonialism used to find a reason to sack him.

  Mr Tsui has apparently stopped at nothing, vainly accusing Mr Buckle of perverting the course of justice and sweeping an internal sexual harassment investigation under the rug.

  Yet last week he was a little more sheepish, refusing to show his hand and say whether he would reveal other cases of alleged injustice, or continue to imply that standing up against sexual harassment involving an expatriate was his undoing.

  ''I've got nothing to gain by all this but I feel I've got a duty to seek answers. It's an obligation, really,'' Mr Tsui said.

  ''You just can't sack someone after 20 years' service and not actually tell anyone, it's all wrong.''   When asked if he was bitter at the strict internal procedures or those who enforced them, he said: ''There are times when the rules are needed but it comes down to those who implement them.

  ''When you have senior officers with a weird view of human life and a warped perception of human beings, perhaps that's what you need a committee to review, not the rules themselves.'' 



Sacking of the ICAC