An expert witness testifying in the high-profile murder trial of former antigraft leader Antasari Azhar claimed Thursday that a recording of a conversation between Antasari and his friend Sigid Haryo Wibisono, a businessman, was authentic.
In parts of the recorded conversation, Antasari and Sigid rehearsed scenarios to kill businessman Nasruddin Zulkarnaen, prosecutors said.
"We have run a spectrum analysis on the recording and have found no signs that it was edited or spliced *with other recordings*," M. Nuh, an IT analyst from the National Police's forensic laboratory, told the hearing at the South Jakarta District Court.
Nuh, who was asked by police instigators to analyze and transcribe the recording, said he was sure the voices in the recording were Antasari's and Sigid's after comparing voice samples.
"Our voice recognition analysis found that 20 words said by Antasari *in the recording* were identical to his voice sample," he said, adding that according to FBI standards, a 20-word match was sufficient to positively identify someone's voice in a recording.
Antasari, the former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman, is currently on trial for allegedly masterminding the murder of Nasruddin, a director of state pharmaceutical company PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran.
The businessman was killed in March in a drive-by shooting, allegedly because of a love triangle between the two men and ex-golf caddie Rhani Juliani, who was also the victim's third wife.
In their indictment, the prosecutors said Antasari had a motive to have Nasruddin killed because he was being blackmailed by Nasruddin, who caught him in flagrante delicto with Rhani in a hotel in South Jakarta.
Media tycoon Sigid and former South Jakarta Police chief Wiliardi Wizard are also on trial, charged with arranging the hit.
In a previous hearing, Sigid said he had recorded some of his conversations with Antasari without the latter's acknowledgement.
Antasari's defense lawyers, however, questioned Nuh's claim, citing the fact that the transcript he made had more than 70 missing words.
"Just imagine when *don't' is missing from a spoken sentence: *I don't want to eat'," defense lawyer Juniver Girsang said.
Two IT experts from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) also testified Thursday on prosecutors' claims that Antasari had threatened Nasruddin via SMS.
The two experts, however, said there was always the possibility the SMS had not been sent by Antasari. Using a web server facility, they told the presiding judge how it was possible to send an SMS with the recipient seeing a different, predetermined sender. "A person can also set when the SMS should be sent," Agung Harsoyo, one of the experts, said.
