Thousands sign up for guided tour as Hong Kong’s anti-corruption agency opens its doors and offers public a rare glimpse of its workings

About 15,000 people apply for tour of the agency’s headquarters but only 5,100 tickets are handed out

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The identification suite is included in the tour. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 5:32pm, 23 Feb 2019Updated: 11:27pm, 23 Feb 2019

The headquarters of Hong Kong’s anti-corruption agency is not normally a place where one would voluntarily walk into, but the opportunity for a rare glimpse into the organisation proved to be a hit with visitors on Saturday.

About 15,000 people signed up for a guided tour of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s headquarters in North Point, but only 5,100 tickets were handed out for its open days this weekend and next Sunday.

To mark its 45th anniversary, the ICAC opened its doors to the public for the ninth time and one of the highlights was the chance for visitors to see its detention rooms for arrested suspects.

Brenda So says the ICAC wants to give people a chance to see how the agency operates. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

The rooms, open to the public for the first time, may have briefly held some of the city’s highest officials, such as former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan, who were both found guilty of misconduct in public office.

The ICAC would not comment on any individual cases, only saying that arrested individuals could be detained for up to 48 hours if they were brought in for investigation.