IT officer nabbed in relation to PKR Julau e-voting tablets tampering incident

Arrest - DayakDaily.com file pic. // Photo: Pixabay

KUCHING, Nov 11: Police have arrested a 44-year-old IT and systems officer in relation to the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) e-voting tablet tampering episode in Julau yesterday.

The suspect, from Subang Jaya, was arrested at around 9.45am today at Sibu Airport, and police have confiscated a laptop, an iPad, two iPhones and five USB pendrives that were in the suspect’s possession.

According to the state Commercial Crime Investigation chief Supt Mustafa Kamal Gani Abdullah, the suspect is being held in Sibu and would be released on police bail after the investigation is completed.

“If the investigation is still ongoing after 24 hours, we will apply for further remand of the suspect under Section 117 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” he said in a press statement today.

The investigation is being conducted under Section 5(1) of the Computer Crime Act 1997 for illegally altering the computer’s content.

If found guilty, the suspect would be charged under Section 5(4) of the same Act, where he would be fined no more than RM1,000 or jailed no more than seven years or both,” said Supt Mustafa.

The arrest was made following a police report lodged by PKR Batu Tiga assemblywoman Rodziah Ismail, who was in Julau yesterday.

At around 2.30pm at the Julau SportsComplex, Rodziah, in her report, said she saw an election committee staff checking each of the e-voting tablets. Later, it was announced that the tablets had been tampered with malware app.

She suspected that the staff she spotted earlier was the culprit and lodged a police report afterwards. — DayakDaily