Ebit Lew asked me to undress and reveal my body, says witness

TENOM: A woman testified in the Magistrate's Court here Wednesday that Ebit Irawan Ibrahim Lew, also known as Ebit Lew, asked her to undress and reveal her body during video calls.

The ninth prosecution witness, in her 40s, who is the complainant in the case, said she initially refused Lew's request.

"However, during the video calls, I was swayed and followed Lew's instructions to gradually reveal parts of my body," she said during a re-examination by deputy public prosecutor Zahida Zakaria.

The witness said she only sent Lew a picture of her face, taken from her mobile phone gallery but he had taken screenshots during the video calls. She added that she had answered three of his video calls.

Earlier, during cross-examination by Lew’s lawyer Datuk Ram Singh, the woman said no outside parties had forced or persuaded her to lodge a police report against Lew.

The ‘outside parties’ referred to her husband, as well as Firdaus Wong and Mohd Fairuz Abu, also known as Akhi Fairuz Al-Jengkawi, both of whom are prosecution witnesses in the trial.

In response to another question, the woman explained that her playful messages in the WhatsApp conversation with Lew were intended to divert the accused from requesting her pictures.

The witness also agreed with Ram Singh's question, that she was not compelled to respond to Lew's messages.

However, she disagreed with the suggestion that her household mobile phone should be sent for forensic analysis, saying it only contained conversations related to the police report against Lew, along with her messages on Facebook and Instagram.

Ebit Lew, 38, faces 11 charges, including outraging the modesty of a woman in her 40s by sending obscenities to her phone via WhatsApp between March and June 2021.

The preacher is charged under Section 509 of the Penal Code (for intending to insult the modesty of a person), which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine, or both upon conviction.

The trial before Magistrate Nur Asyraf Zolhani resumes from Dec 9 to 11. - Bernama