KUALA LUMPUR: The trial of sex bloggers Alvin Tan Jye Yee and Vivian Lee May Ling (pic) revealed a mistake in the search warrant details.
Insp Sharveen Seelan, the 13th witness in the trial, testified that he led a team of nine Bukit Aman police officers to raid Tan and Lee’s apartment at Kompleks Mutiara, Jalan Ipoh on July 15, three years ago.
He said during the 10pm raid, they confiscated nine items from the “messy” residence: two laptops, two pen drives, two cameras, a U Mobile broadband unit, an electric bill, and a broadband bill.
However, defence lawyer J.T.Chong pointed out a discrepancy in the search warrant – it showed the jotted time in the date field to be 10 “hours” instead of 10pm as testified.
“Do you agree that the nine items mentioned were confiscated at 10am instead of 10pm like you mentioned?” Chong asked Sharveen, during cross-examination.
When Sharveen disagreed, Chong pressed: “Do you agree that it (the jotting) contradicts what you said, that the raid was done at 10pm?”
According to Sharveen, the confiscated items were surrendered to MCMC enforcement department deputy director Yuzani Muhammad Yusoff at about 1am on July 16, 2013 at Kompleks Kerajaan Bukit Perdana.
Yuzani also participated in the raid, and Sharveen later clarified that his own mistake was in writing “hours” instead of 10pm as the raid was done at night.
Clad in a knee-length navy blue dress with long-sleeves, a pale Lee was sitting alone in the dock as Tan has jumped bail and is currently in the United States.
Despite a few tears, she appeared calm and only chatted with a middle-aged male companion and her lawyer during breaks.
Sessions Court judge Abdul Rashid Daud fixed Jan 21 for the last day of trial.
On July 18, 2013, Tan, 27, and Lee, 26, were jointly charged under Subsection 5(1) of the Film Censorship Act, Section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act and Section 298A(1) of the Penal Code.
They were charged with displaying pornographic images on their blog between July 6 and 7 that year.
For the second charge, they were accused of publishing a seditious photograph and inviting Muslims to break fast with bak kut teh together with a halal logo.
The third charge, for uploading content that could possibly stir hostility among those with different beliefs, was later dismissed by the Court of Appeal on grounds that it did not apply to non-Muslims.
Tan and Lee later apologised for the video posting on YouTube, saying it was done in jest.
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