Judge Azura Alwi also directed the anti-graft agency’s Forensics Technology Division investigating officer, Wan Firdaus Wan Yusof, to provide the particulars of a colleague who prepared a similar report in connection with a criminal trial at the Shah Alam sessions court.
Azura also allowed an application by Lim’s lawyer, Gobind Singh Deo, for copies of the documents to be furnished before the next trial date, Oct 19.
Earlier, Wan Firdaus, who was recalled to the witness stand, outlined the procedures adopted when extracting data, including WhatsApp messages and photos, from a mobile phone.
The prosecution witness had tendered a report on text messages exchanged between Zarul and Gnanaraja from July 2017 to February 2018 but no prior copy was given to the defence.
Gobind had contended that the report only contained messages exchanged between the two men “limited to a certain time frame”.
Today, he told Azura he was made aware of the existence of a Shah Alam case where the prosecution had procured a forensic report with the same message thread.
Gnanaraja had on April 3, 2019 claimed trial at the sessions court to three charges of cheating Zarul of RM19 million.
He was alleged to have deceived Zarul into believing that he could help Zarul close ongoing MACC investigations into his activities.
However, the status of the case is unclear although lawyers appearing for Zarul have made representations to the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
Lim is standing trial on charges of using his position as then Penang chief minister to ask Zarul for a 10% profit cut from the undersea tunnel project and accepting RM3.3 million in kickbacks from the businessman.
He is also accused of two counts of dishonestly misappropriating RM208.7 million worth of state land from two companies.
Last month, Zarul told the court he wanted to “protect” Lim from MACC investigators because he felt indebted to him for awarding the company a RM6.3 billion project.
Under cross-examination by Gobind, Zarul said he paid Gnanaraja, who was allegedly close to the then prime minister Najib Razak, to stop the investigations.
Asked by Gobind about his WhatsApp conversations with Gnanaraja revolving around the RM19 million payment, Zarul told the court he was unable to produce them as his mobile phone had been seized by MACC officers during their investigation.
Gobind had then requested that the prosecution produce the phone so the defence could examine it, but deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin told the court the device could not be switched on.
Gobind then told Azura that the defence wanted to scrutinise the WhatsApp messages between Gnanaraja and Zarul, which the prosecution said it would try to secure.