Deleted texts between Mbenenge, Mengo may not be recovered

The hearing resumed on Monday after adjourning in January.

Mbenenge has been accused, by High Court Secretary Andiswa Mengo, of abusing his power and making unsolicited sexual advances towards her.

During her earlier testimony, Mengo said that after she submitted her phone to authorities for analysis in 2023,  she received threats to drop the case against Mbenenge.

She said that when the device was returned to her, it was missing some data.  

Mengo denied deleting any messages.

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Testifying at the hearing, cell phone expert Francois Moller explained that deleted messages may be unretrievable.

“If it was deleted, either by the recipient or by the sender by doing the delete for all, and the data was overwritten, then there is no way that I can determine from doing the download that there [were] indeed messages exchanged between the two parties.”

Mengo claimed Mbenenge sent her sexually explicit images as well as an image of his private parts.

Moller was asked about the origins of the image, which was reportedly sent in the form of a WhatsApp sticker.

“When a sticker is just saved onto the gallery and the original message is deleted, then there is no way to determine the origin. So, where it came from – whether you created it yourself, whether you downloaded it from the internet, or whether you received it from an individual – it cannot be determined from the sticker itself.”

The expert also testified that, while he could deduce that the messages came from the devices and numbers he was told belonged to the respondent and the accused, he had no definitive way of predicting that they were indeed the sender or recipient, as anyone could have used the devices during the period in question.

More witnesses will be called to testify, including some who will appear virtually from the Eastern Cape.