Kuala lumpur: A witness in the trial of a sexual harassment case involving preacher Ebit Irawan Lew, commonly known as Ebit Lew, informed the Magistrate’s Court that he required seven days to thoroughly analyse more than 30,000 pictures stored on a pen drive.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, ASP Yip Chang Ching, 45, an analyst with the Royal Malaysia Police Forensic Laboratory’s Computer Crime Investigation Unit, explained that this time frame included two days dedicated to opening the original raw format data obtained from a phone involved in the case. He stated, “Following the request of the investigating officer to produce all the sexually explicit images, I conducted an analysis by going through or looking at each image,” during a re-examination by Deputy Public Prosecutor Nor Azizah Mohamad.
The trial commenced at 3 pm before Magistrate Nur Asyraf Zolhani, with lawyers Kamaruddin Mohmad Chinki and Prem Elmer Ganasan participating online, and concluded around 5.30 pm. Yip, the eighth witness in the trial, noted that the analysis took extensive time because the raw data required special software for conversion to a readable format.
Yip further elaborated that the data he analysed were extracted and reported by the company LGMS Berhad. He assured the court that his analysis would not interfere with or alter any information or data involved. When questioned by Kamaruddin, the witness confirmed that the images on the pen drive and those in the Digital Forensic Investigation Report appeared similar. Kamaruddin inquired if Yip received the Digital Forensic Investigation Report in physical form, to which Yip responded, “No, just portable document format (PDF).”
Ebit Lew, 39, is facing 11 charges related to defaming the modesty of a woman in her 40s by sending obscene words and pictures to her phone via WhatsApp between March and June 2021. He is charged under Section 509 of the Penal Code, which carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both upon conviction. The trial is set to continue from October 22 to 25.