Actor abduction case: Court questions prosecutor’s plea to send memory card for reanalysis

KOCHI: The Additional Special Sessions Court, which is hearing the 2017 actor sexual assault case, on Monday asked the public prosecutor the purpose of sending the memory card containing visuals of the attack to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) again, when it had already been analysed once and used as evidence in the trial.

Judge Honey M Varghese’s poser came when the prosecution’s petition seeking to send the card to FSL again for analysis came up. The prosecutor replied that the investigation team suspected that Dileep saw the visuals at his residence. Hence, analysing the properties of the files in the card would reveal whether an outsider accessed them, it said.

The court then asked how the prosecution could not believe the FSL expert who was examined as its witness. The judge also said the memory card was marked as prosecution evidence and was in the court’s custody. “It is a privileged document. The prosecution has to convince the court why it should be sent for forensic analysis again,” said the judge.

The prosecutor claimed that their petition did not say Dileep accessed the memory card but that he saw the assault visuals, as per witnesses. The court then said the investigation officer too might be possessing the visuals.  “Why is the prosecution maintaining that visuals from the card that is in the court’s custody have been leaked,” asked the court, indicating Dileep might have seen the visuals sourced from elsewhere.
The court also read out the report filed by the FSL expert who inspected the contents of the card and was examined as a prosecution witness. 

“It says FSL submitted four reports regarding the contents of the memory card. It says FSL extracted all the contents, including the file properties, from the memory card and examined them,” said the court, which will consider the petition again on Thursday.

DILEEP FILES OBJECTION
Dileep on Monday filed a detailed objection at the Additional Special Sessions court to the prosecution’s petition seeking cancellation of his bail. The prosecution alleged Dileep influenced witnesses and tampered with evidence. The objection filed by Dileep runs 27 pages long and counters each allegation individually. The court will hear the prosecution on Thursday.