Breytenbach details ‘can’t be retrieved’
High-level security methods were deployed when deleting files on the NPA laptop of Glynnis Breytenbach during her time as State prosecutor, a court has heard.
|||Pretoria - High-level security methods were deployed when deleting files on the National Prosecuting Authority laptop of DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach during her time as State prosecutor.
This was the testimony of cybercrime and data specialist Jaco Venter during the fourth day of the trial of the DA MP and her former lawyer, Gerhard Wagenaar, in the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court.
Venter testified the shredded information from Breytenbach’s laptop could not be retrieved.
However, in comparing the information on hand, they determined that the files had been saved on the NPA server on the day Breytenbach was served her suspension notice.
“The shredding deleted the information on the laptop, and the folders could not be opened at all. The files could no longer be accessed on the laptop, but the information was available on the server,” he said.
The information was only successfully shredded on May 2 - that was the last time that the laptop was accessed, he testified.
The duo’s legal representative, Barry Roux, stressed that all the information on Breytenbach’s laptop had first been backed up on the server. He said she had also gone as far as making a mirror-copy to prevent manipulation of information.
Roux noted that Venter, like Breytenbach, had taken at face value the go-ahead of the investigating team to go through the NPA official laptop without any doubt that they were able to give authorisation.
Apparently four e-mails had been sent to the NPA officials requesting they accede to respect Breytenbach’s privacy, to which they did not reply. Breytenbach and Wagenaar are facing charges of defeating the ends of justice and contravening the NPA Act after they allegedly deleted files from her official work computer. At the time, Breytenbach was being investigated for failing to act impartially while investigating mining rights case. The trial resumes on October 3.
Pretoria News