So many people have been mailing to ask what's going on, so to update you all:
I am free to move around India on Bail until the 23rd of this month when I have to appear in court.
My hope is that the police will have finished my case file by then, but they are entitled to take 90 days over it and are waiting for Thuraya to provide call details from my phone to corroborate that I didn't use it in India. Their monitoring equipment detected my phone being used at strange times of the day, which I am sure it was not. I can't explain this discrepancy other than by an error in the detection equipment. Investigating officers have told me that this discrepancy is the only cause for suspicion left. Getting the call records could take 5 days, 10 days, 30 days, 90 days, it might never happen. I don't think Thuraya are obliged to pass the details on.
I'm still facing an anti-terrorism charge which carries a 10 year prison sentence. There is a hope that if the police get the phone call records they will drop the anti-terror charge. No guarantees of this but my lawyer seems confident this will be the case.
The other two charges are punitive, that means they carry a fine but no prison time. (€2 for one, and €20 for the other), and can be decided instantly by a judge.
My hope is that this is all resolved as quickly as possible, and that the police drop the anti-terror charge (the information technology act section 70) and submit the case file by the 22nd, so this can all be over by the 23rd.
Obviously the police have to be sure that I am not a security risk, and while I think I have proved it already beyond reasonable doubt, the call records would prove it once and for all beyond ALL doubt. I know they are doing all they can to get the matter sorted.
Come on Thuraya, get your finger out.
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My article in the Times of India
ReplyDeletehttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Exclusive-Green-traveller-Andy-Pag-writes-for-TOI/articleshow/5474954.cms
Just spoke to a guy at Thuraya who says they don't keep the call records of incoming calls - that can't be right can it?
ReplyDeleteJeremy Milton of 3pc.com recons he can get the CDR (Call Data Records).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
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ReplyDeleteNo, it really looks like no one can get incoming call logs for Thuraya's. They just don't seem to exist. Thuraya don't keep them. Shit. Still a few leads to chase down.
ReplyDeleteAlas! Thuraya should get it soon.
ReplyDeleteDid you check with any human rights association?
I've quoted you on blog.
http://blog.gohoto.com/?p=55
The police did not submit a case file/final report in time for the court hearing so the process has been adjourned until the 29th. My visa for India expires on the 22nd of Feb.
ReplyDeleteFrom my friend Cor at Toyota:
ReplyDelete"From Thuraya self got ultimately yesterday evening a reply (phonecall)stating that no records are kept as far as calls to Thuraya terminals are concerned. Only when somebody calls a Thuraya using another Thuraya the call is registered as an outgoing call of that other terminal.
In short: they confirmed that NO records of incoming calls are made/kept"
Cor has also had his own sat phone forensically examined as an experiment to see if there is any record of deleted calls, and there isn't. These handsets have all the processing power of rainbow trout.
ReplyDeleteJeremy from 3pc.co.uk has done it. Got a forwarded email from Thuraya:
ReplyDelete"The billing team managed to checked and no calls were found (made or recieved) on those dates."
Now I have to get the investigating officers to confrim with the contact person at Thuraya that sent the email. Feeling elated, so many people have been pushing at this. Thanks everyone for all the phone calls and favours you've all pulled in.