ICAC puts evidence on display
It is merely a simple lunchbox, but when ICAC investigators found it several years ago, it held 132 Hong Kong identity cards - key evidence that helped the graft-busters break up a medical insurance scam.
The lunchbox is one of many exhibits that will be on display to the public during open days at the Independent Commission Against Corruption in North Point, on October 23 and 24.
Visitors will get a 90-minute guided tour of the ICAC's facilities and exhibits, including interrogation rooms, weapons and evidence uncovered during investigations.
The red lunch box with the stolen ID cards will be on display, as well. ICAC officers found it in the criminals' car during their investigations. They uncovered a scam in which three mainlanders had themselves surgically blinded in one eye in order to claim HK$18 million in bogus insurance claims, using ID cards taken from Hongkongers.
Other evidence in the case will also be on display during the open days, including medical reports and insurance claims. Other exhibits will reflect some of the major cases the ICAC has dealt with over its its 36-year history.
Visitors will be shown the identification-parade suite equipped with a one-way mirror, video interview rooms where suspects are questioned at a triangular table, and the exhibition hall itself. Visitors will be allowed to touch firearms used by anti-graft investigators.
Those who wish to attend should apply before September 27 for tickets, which will be allotted through a random draw. This is a new arrangement: in the past, visitors were given tickets on a first-come, first-served basis on the open day.
'Visitors will not need to queue up outside the ICAC headquarters several hours before the tour starts under the new arrangement,' Bernadette Cook Liu Sau-fong, a regional officer with the ICAC's Community Relations Department, said. Last year, some visitors stood in the queue for six hours.
The ICAC is expected to give out 3,000 tickets for the open day. Successful applicants may take four tickets. Starting from today, application forms for tickets can be downloaded from the ICAC website or obtained either from the ICAC headquarters and its seven regional offices.
