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Million Mukiri

Auxilia Katongomara Court Reporter
A South Africa-based Zimbabwean forensic expert took to the witness stand yesterday in the trial of a former Bellevue SPAR employee accused of insulting his former boss, prominent Bulawayo businessman, Raj Modi on Facebook.The expert, Cain Nhemachena told the court how, Million Mukiri who is being charged for allegedly accusing his former boss of practising slavery on a Facebook page that he created was unmasked through forensics.

Mukiri was hauled before regional magistrate Chrispen Mberewere for contravening the Postal and Telecommunications Act which criminalises the transmission of offensive or false messages.

Nhemachena told the court that during forensic examinations, they examined a number of devices that include phones and laptops and detected an Apple IPhone which belonged to Mukiri as the device used to post from the Facebook page Ilifa Lethu, Nhaka Yedu.

The faceless character who ran the page was posting disparaging remarks about the businessman.

“Once we received these devices, we created forensic images on the data residing on the devices handed over to us. For any kind of digital forensic investigations standards require that you create an exact copy of the data residing on that device called forensic images.  After that we handed back the devices to the police and we then conducted our analysis of the forensic images,” said Nhemachena.

The expert who trained in forensic hacking investigations said the Apple Iphone had content linked to Mukiri.

Nhemachena produced a forensic audit report he compiled together with his team which also revealed text messages in Mukiri’s phone.

The audit report also showed text messages from Edgar’s accounts, Eco cash transfers and air time transfers from the phone done by Mukiri.

Mukiri pleaded not guilty to the charges and claimed that his phone had been stolen and was not active or in his possession at that particular time.

Prosecuting, Vivian Chikomo told the court that some time in July last year, Modi discovered that an anonymous person had created a Facebook page entitled Ilifa Lethu, Nhaka Yedu that was used to post offensive messages about him.

The businessman felt offended and reported the matter to the police.

During investigations, police seized all cellphones together with laptops from all Bellevue SPAR employees and those confiscated included Mukiri’s Apple Iphone model.

“Grant Thornton Forensic Company was engaged to carry out forensic investigations of those laptops and cellphones. During the investigations, they found out that Mukiri’s Iphone contained several artefacts which indicated that some of the posts on the Facebook page were made from it,” said Chikomo.

The trial continues on August 4.