Studio Press

The company involved in the London bombing telephone forensics work is offering its expertise to the Royal Malaysian Police. Forensic Telecommunications Services Ltd (FTS), which is currently helping the British police in ongoing investigations of the London bombing, is known for its specialised techniques in extracting evidence from mobile and fixed line telephones. Its operations manager Shaun Hipgrave said the Malaysian authorities have expressed an interest in acquiring the technology but nothing official has taken place yet. "We can assist not only in terms of technology but also in the setting up of laboratories and forensic training," he told Bernama when interviewed at the Defence Service Asia 2006 exhibition here Wednesday. Using a technology called Hex extraction, the FTS forensics team is able to recover the phone book, calls dialled, received and missed, as well as received and sent SMS (short messaging service) messages from a smashed, submerged or burnt mobile phone while preserving the integrity of crime scene evidence. Its capability to extract even deleted data from mobile phones was what made FTS the current world leading experts in telephone forensics. Citing a recent case in Britain where a teenager was killed in a racist attack, Hipgrave said FTS helped to extract incriminating evidence from the murderers' mobile phones. "We were able to identify where the phones were when calls were made as they had made a phone call from the scene of the crime and that helped to disprove their alibi," he explained. Hipgrave said the Hex extraction technology and FTS' analytical software have been used in many major criminal investigation cases, including those concerning organised crime, drugs transportation and revenue evasion. The evidence gathered could be used to demonstrate association or conspiracy and to confirm a victim's movement and geographically place suspects at the crime scene, he said. Evidence presented in courts in the United Kingdom by FTS staff are accepted as that from expert witnesses, he added. Hipgrave said the company, which has five laboratories in the UK and one in Canada, examined about 20,000 mobile phones a year for Scotland Yard and other police forces in the UK. It was learnt that several Asian countries have expressed interest in the technology, including Singapore which has its own set-up starting this month. FTS, founded in 2000, also provides a comprehensive computer forensic investigative service as well as telecoms investigator training courses.-Bernama