Questions raised by the defence in the trial for the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu pertaining to several overlapping police reports last month, were answered by two police personnel from the information technology (IT) division today.
Cpl Sim Gek Huang, 35, of the Bukit Aman IT division, said that overlapping reports happened when amendments were made to the original report, made by investigating officer ASP Zulkarnain Samsudin (above).
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Overlapping reports happened when amendments were made to the original report, said Cpl Sim Gek Huang, 35, of the Bukit Aman IT division.
Referring to a police report made by investigating officer ASP Zulkarnain Samsudin on Nov 7, he said the Police Report System (PRS) allowed the report list and copy to be printed. “
The document was prepared by ASP Zulkarnain between 6pm and 6.30pm.
"He had communicated with the Bukit Aman PRS operation and I answered the line. ASP Zulkarnain applied to add words in report Tun HS Lee 28948/06."
“Before I made the amendment, I took out the list report for review as to where ASP Zulkarnain wanted to add sentences in the report."
The police report was on Cpl Sirul Azhar Umar’s alleged disclosure of Altantuya’s jewellery.
Asked by Deputy Public Prosecutor Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah during the examination-in-chief about the difference between a report list and a report copy, Sim said: “At the foot of the report list, there is no space for signatures of the complainants and staff at the enquiry office while in the report copy, there is space for signatures.”
Only the report copy would be given to the complainant if he wanted to buy it, he said.
“If a complainant or any police officer wants to only look at a report, a PRS user will normally use the report list facility,” he said.
He also confirmed that several handwritings on the report list were his.
Sim is the 26th prosecution witness.
He said that according to the notes, the spelling of the name of Zulkarnain’s father was to be altered by removing an "h" and a "d", the suspect’s name - Sirul Azhar bin Hj Umar was also to be added on the second line and the word “penama” was to be replaced with “suspect” on the third line.
He also added “sesuatu” after “mendedahkan” on the last line, replaced “yang” with “ada” and amended “berhubung” to “bersangkut”.
In previous proceedings, Sirul’s lawyer, Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin, had raised doubts pertaining to the handwritings and questioned the overlapping of several police reports especially when Zulkarnain was giving evidence.
“Before making the draft, I asked Zulkarnain to send a damage report which stated what was to be done by him through the help desk.
“When the damage report came to me, I used the system administrator facility to add and amend the sentences according to the damage report sent by Zulkarnain,” he said.
He said that after the damage report, the amended report would be sent back to the relevant station and Zulkarnain needed to put it in the Pol 41 book (police station record book).
He stressed that even though the contents of Zulkarnain’s reports had changed, the report number, date and time remained as they were.
When cross-examined by Kamarul, Sim said amendments were only made on the basis of necessity and he admitted that people who were not familiar with PRS and IT would find it difficult to identify which was the amended report.
He, however, agreed that Zulkarnain did not say why the reports were to be amended. Sim said an amendment took about 15 to 30 minutes and there was no time limit for amendments to be made on police reports by police personnel.
Sim added that the original report by a police officer was normally printed first to be kept manually in a file because under PRS, old reports would be deleted when amendments were made.
Another personnel in the IT division, Const Mazlinwaheeda Mansor, 23, said she received a phone call from Zulkarnanin at 1 am to amend a police report about Sirul’s home address.
She said that the Kota Damansara 4638/06 report dated Nov 7, 2006 was amended on Dec 13, 2006 and she also printed the original report for storage and reference.
After that, Mazlinwaheeda said Sirul’s address was changed from 5-2-7 to 5-3-7.
The trial, which entered its 39th day today, also saw two officers-in-charge of police stations (OCS) taking the witness stand.
Tun HS Lee OCS C/Insp Erwansyah Abdul Basir, 32, said the original report by Zulkarnain (made on Nov 7, 2006) was kept in the POL 41 book at his station while the amended report was not kept together but in another section according to the date of amendment.
Sgt Major Latif Awang, 52, who is Kota Damansara OCS, said the station only had a copy and he did not know whether it was the original or amended one because it did not show any amendment had been made.
Erwansyah kept a police report pertaining to Sirul’s alleged disclosure while Latif kept the report on the search at Sirul’s house.
The two OCS said Zulkarnain did not tell them about amendments being made to the original reports.
Sirul, 36, and C/Insp Azilah Hadri, 31, are jointly charged with murdering Altantuya, 28, in Mukim Bukit Raja here in October last year.
Political analyst Abdul Razak Abdullah Baginda, 47, is alleged to have abetted the policemen in committing the murder.
The trial before Justice Datuk Mohd Zaki Md Yassin continues tomorrow.
