Week-long appeal in Rafael Hui bribery scandal gets under way

Former Hong Kong government No 2 Rafael Hui Si-yan and property tycoon Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong will start a week-long appeal today against graft convictions involving millions of dollars in "sweetener payments".

Hui, who last December became the highest-level former official ever to be convicted in Hong Kong, is currently serving a 7½-year jail term.

Kwok, former co-chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties, was sentenced to five years.

Former SHKP executive director Thomas Chan Kui-yuen and former Hong Kong stock exchange official Francis Kwan Hung-sang were sentenced to six and five years in jail respectively over two charges each.

The Court of Appeal has already indicated that some of the possible grounds for appeal could be challenged.

Kwok's lawyers are expected to argue that the trial judge, Mr Justice Andrew Macrae, erred by failing to direct the jury to consider whether the prosecution had proven that Hui carried out a specific act that could be seen as an abuse of power. They have argued that "being or remaining favourably disposed" - as the offence against the defendants was worded - is insufficient to constitute the specific act of abuse of power required for the offence.