Close-circuit television (CCTV) footage obtained from the Kuala Lumpur office of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had been tampered with, an audio-visual expert from the Cheras police labs said today.

ASP Fauziah Che Mat was testifying on the third day of the inquest into the death of Selangor Customs deputy chief Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamad, who was found dead on the badminton court on the first floor of the building on April 6.

"In my opinion the recordings were tampered with by someone with knowledge of the CCTV system," Fauziah said, replying to DPP Amalina Ismail.

NONE The police expert explained how nearly two minutes of footage went missing, just after 2pm, at the beginning of two digital video recordings from the CCTV system on footages from April 5.

Later, another 22 hours went without footage as the system was manually stopped from recording from April 5 to April 6, the day of Sarbani's death.

The recordings only came online again after 1pm on April 6, several hours after Sarbani was found dead.

Fauziah also described how someone had reset the time code of the system to appear as it was eight hours earlier, instead of the current time.

However she could not say for sure the purpose of the tamperings.

Sobs and cries from gallery

However, a third recorder was intact and she managed to extract from it a footage of Sarbani entering the main gate of the MACC office complex.

The footage was screened during the hearing.

A hushed and sombre silence suddenly hit the courtroom as footage of what were the last moments of the Customs officer’s life was played on-screen.

Soft sobs and muffled cries could be heard from the section of the public gallery reserved for Sarbani's family.

However, the next witness, Kuala Lumpur MACC director Mohd Yusof Akope, said the disruptions in the recordings were the result of “human error” in the newly-installed security system.

The director also said the CCTV control room was kept locked at all times and only "relevant" personnel could enter.

NONE MACC security guard Ismail Sedek, 55, corraborated the director's statement when he admitted that he may have damaged the CCTV machine, which he was not fully trained to operate.

Ismail admitted to having operated the controls about 4pm to rewind the CCTV recording and check for past activities.

However, when he pressed what he called the "escape" button, the image on the screen froze and the recording stopped, instead of rewinding.

Ismail said that he then filed a report on the matter with the security officer.

Given his lack of knowledge of the machine, he said, it was possible that he had triggered the manual interrupt, but claimed that the system was buggy and that he had experienced similar difficulties two or three times before.

However, Ismail disputed Mohd Yusof's claim that the door to the CCTV control room was kept locked, saying it was always unlocked and being busy with patrols and other duties, he was not able to fully monitor who went in or out.

Both the director and the security guard confirmed that the access card system securing entrances to the offices on all floors had been disengaged, as they had run out of access cards to supply to the numerous MACC and Customs officers during their anti-graft crackdown last April.

As such, entry to the office floors was a bit of a free for all.

'Sarbani was our guest'

The director also maintained that despite being a suspect, Sarbani was a guest when he returned to the commission's KL office on that day, three days after his initial arrest by the MACC.

"He is a guest," stressed Mohd Yusoff

However, in his testimony earlier, Mohd Yusoff said suspects who were released on bail, like Sarbani, would still have their movements monitored and accompanied by an officer when in their office.

Sarbani was left alone, if reports from the MACC are accurate, prior to being found dead.

The inquest was put off to tomorrow after five witnesses were called to the stand today. It resumes tomorrow with one of the investigating officers of the case and his staff as witnesses.