Rafael Hui verdict still up in the air after two days of jury deliberations

Jurors in the city's highest-profile graft trial will carry over their deliberations into a third day after spending almost 20 hours so far discussing the charges against former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan and Sun Hung Kai Properties' two co-chairmen.

Mr Justice Andrew Macrae called it a day at 8.15pm last night, summoning jurors back to the courtroom to remind them not to talk about the case until the court reconvened at 9.30am today.

"Experience tells us in any human endeavour … sometimes just take a step back and take a rest," the trial judge said.

Hui allegedly took HK$28.8 million in cash as bribes from billionaire brothers Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong and Raymond Kwok Ping-luen, partly via two middlemen: SHKP executive director Thomas Chan Kui-yuen and former stock exchange official Francis Kwan Hung-sang.

In Hong Kong's legal history, it is not uncommon for the jury in an important and complex case to take days and nights before making up its mind. Some of the major cases in the past involved deliberation of three to five days.

In the current trial, the nine jurors must plough through testimony from more than 50 prosecution witnesses, three of the five defendants and other defence evidence.