A 24-year-old man charged with distributing obscene nude photographs purportedly of Hong Kong pop and movie stars was released yesterday on HK$10,000 bail by Kwun Tong Court.

His court appearance came as the management company of the central male character in the scandal, Edison Chen Koon-hei, confirmed the singer- actor will be returning to Hong Kong "within days."

Mavis Leung Man-wai, spokeswoman for East Asia Entertainment, said arrangements and discussions on Chen's return are ongoing.

"But there is no truth to reports that Chen will be boarding a plane on Friday or that a press conference is being arranged," she said.

The court was told Kwok Chun-wai, a clerk, had uploaded two zipped files containing 100 obscene pictures to an internet server in Cyprus, which pasted hyperlinks to the files in Hong Kong forums between February 6 and 8.

In granting bail, acting principal magistrate Amanda Jane Woodcock ordered Kwok to report to Ngau Tau Kok police station every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and to surrender his travel documents and not leave Hong Kong. She noted Kwok has no criminal record and is unlikely to interfere with witnesses.

Kwok was arrested on Sunday at his home in Kowloon Bay. Since the start of the saga on January 27, six men and three women have been arrested by police. Kwok's case has been adjourned to March 11.

The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority said yesterday it had received 37 new complaints regarding the reporting style and photographs published by local newspapers and magazines over the Lunar New Year holiday period, bringing the total number of complaints concerning the pictures to 71.

Meanwhile, Eastweek, a sister publication of The Standard, reported that pop star Gillian Chung Yang-tung had been depressed and unable to sleep following the publication of the first photo on January 27.

A source close to Chung said she confined herself to her home and spent most of the day crying. She refused to eat and relied on sleeping pills, but kept waking because of nightmares.