THE seventh witness in the trial of preacher Ebit Irawan Ibrahim Lew or Ebit Lew told the magistrate’s court today that she found a history of pornographic websites surfed from analysing the accused’s mobile phone. 

Royal Malaysia Police senior audio video analyst Latifah Abdul Aziz said the websites were accessed from the Google application and the results of the analysis were included in a DVD to be handed over to the case investigating officer. 

“From all the screenshots that I had taken, there were several websites suspected of being obscene and also those that were not,” she said during examination-in-chief by Deputy Public Prosecutor Nor Azizah Mohamad. 

For confirmation, she accessed several of the websites and found them to be pornographic in nature.  

Latifah said among the websites also browsed were Wikipedia, with searches on “sexual harassment”, “Sexual harassment laws in Malaysia”, “Jail risk from obscene jokes”, and “Sexual offences punishment Bill”.  

Nor Azizah: Can the metadata that you mentioned also be seen in the screenshots of this analysis? 

Latifah: Yes, for the first picture, this is a summary of all the screenshots from the browsing history in the case exhibit (mobile phone). 

The accused was given permission not to attend trial today after his lawyer, Ram Singh, informed the court that Ebit was performing the Hajj in Makkah. 

During the morning trial session, Latifah informed the court that another phone she had analysed contained 219 screenshots of conversations from the WhatsApp application starting from March 4, 2021.  

These screenshots were saved in a compact disc, she added.   

She said picture one showed the phone number belonged to the sender and the date of March 4, 2021, which is when the conversation began while the following screenshots were of the conversations that took place.  

Latifah said a screenshot also showed there was an unanswered voice call sent by the accused at 6.10pm, but the date was not mentioned in court.  

She said there were also unanswered calls on March 15 and March 16, 2021.  

Another screenshot showed that on March 17, 2021, there was a “retry” attempt to send a message but it was not delivered, Latifah said.  

Ebit Lew, 37, faces 11 counts of sexual harassment that include sending obscene words and pictures to the victim’s phone number via the WhatsApp application between March and June 2021. 

The charge under Section 509 of the Penal Code provides for a prison sentence of up to five years or a fine or both upon conviction.  

The trial continues tomorrow. – Bernama, June 21, 2023.