Investigators were unable to go through text messages of several anti-graft officers as the contents were not kept by the mobile service provider, Celcom Axiata Berhad, the Teoh Beng Hock Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) was told today.
RCI chairman Tan Sri James Foong said Celcom had informed the commission that it did not keep information on the contents of short messaging system (SMS) missives, as well as the calls made by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers around the time of Teoh’s death in 2009.
“(For SMSes), we store the date, time and mobile number of the sender and recipient,” said Norizal Hasim, a senior manager in Celcom, at the inquiry today.
“In the current system, we don’t keep the content of SMSes,” he added.
Norizal, 38, said the SMS details as mentioned are stored for 30 days before they are sent to the billing department.
“After 30 days, they are kept for a year. (Then), they are purged. Can’t be retrieved,” said Norizal.
He added that the system in Celcom, which he said does not enable SMS contents to be stored, was introduced in 2004.
The mobile phones of several MACC officers, who played a role in the investigations involving Teoh in 2009, had been confiscated.
Teoh was found dead on the fifth floor corridor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009, after he was questioned overnight by MACC officers at their then Selangor headquarters on the 14th floor.
Teoh, 30, was the political secretary to Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah, who is also the Seri Kembangan assemblyman from the DAP, at the time of his death.
The graftbusters were investigating a claim that Teoh’s boss was abusing state funds.
Foong pointed out that in family law hearings, it was common to obtain the contents of SMSes exchanged by spouses with other people.
“I don’t know. In our system, we don’t have [such a facility],” said Norizal, who has a degree in electrical engineering.
“Messages are kept in the SIM card and phone,” he added.
Norizal also said his company did not store customers’ SMS details in an off-site facility.
“We just send to billing,” he said.
Norizal added that the “architecture” of the new system was better than the previous, despite its inability to store the contents of mobile text messages.
The police had seized the mobile phones belonging to then Selangor MACC deputy director Hishamuddin Hashim, investigating officer Mohd Anuar Ismail and Selangor MACC investigation unit head Hairul Ilham Hamzah.
The mobile phones belonging to MACC officers Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus and Nazri Ibrahim, who had interviewed and recorded Teoh’s statement respectively hours before his mysterious death, were also confiscated.
An assistant analyst at the computer crime section of the police forensic laboratory, Inspector Mohd Zaidi Abu Hassan, testified last month that no information on SMSes or calls made, received or missed on the day Teoh died could be retrieved from the graftbusters’ phones.
He had said the only information that could be obtained was SMSes or calls made and received after July 22, 2009.
Zaidi said SMSes or calls made or received on crucial dates like July 15, 16 and 17, 2009, could not be detected, due to the phones’ limited capacity to store data or because the phones were new.
He had also said he could only analyse four of the phones because Nazri’s was locked with a personal identification number (PIN).
The inquiry resumes tomorrow.
The RCI has until June 25 to present its report to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
