Antasari Azhar Never Sent SMS Messages to Nasrudin: IT Expert

JAKARTA LIFE'S STYLE

An information technology expert called to testify at Antasari Azhar’s hearing for the murder of Nusrudin Zulkarnaen on Tuesday said that Antasari never sent any SMS messages to the victim’s cellphone.

The general prosecutor stated in his indictment that Antasari had terrorized Nasrudin through SMS messages.

The court was scheduled to hear testimony from four witnesses, including a forensic expert, a ballistic expert and two IT experts, but only Agung Harsono, an IT expert from Bandung Institute of Technology, could attend.

Agung said there were no records of any SMS messages sent from any of Antasari’s six cellphone numbers to Nasrudin’s phone between February and March 2008. However, there were 30 messages sent to Antasari from unidentified numbers. Agung said the messages were spam and were sent through Web sites. The head judge asked Agung to investigate the unidentified numbers and present his findings at the next hearing on Thursday.

Agung said there were 13 points in his analysis based on his investigation of six cellphone numbers belonging to Antasari, one number belonging to Nasrudin and five numbers belonging to media magnate Sigid Haryo Wibisono, a co-defendant in the same case.

After the hearing, Antasari said he felt libeled by the prosecutor’s indictment that he sent threatening SMS messages to Nasrudin.

Antasari’s lawyer, Juniver Girsang, said that he would do his best to reveal the mastermind behind the case.

“Is the prosecutor’s indictment true that there were SMS messages from Antasari to Nasrudin? It is our job to reveal the truth to avoid innocent people becoming victims,” Juniver said.(thejakartaglobe)