A South African digital forensic expert testifying in the trial of suspended First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar and seven co-accused asked the special court in Juba on Wednesday to authorise the transfer of two seized devices—a MacBook laptop and a Samsung Galaxy S22 phone—to their countries of manufacture for advanced, non-destructive data extraction.

Ratlhogo Peter Calvin Rafadi, concluding his testimony during the 50th session at Freedom Hall, explained that both devices are protected by strong passwords that prevented access without risking permanent data loss.

Calvin told the court he could not unlock the MacBook without the password, as forced bypass attempts would trigger its built-in encryption safeguards.

“MacBooks operate with special encryption and should one interrogate the password, all the folders are likely to move to this special encrypted disk and as such, all the data is 99 percent not recoverable,” he stated.

He identified the MacBook’s serial number prefix (“COZ”) as indicating manufacture in China, recommending the device (evidence plastic number FB-100-000-1568) be sent to the original equipment manufacturer (Apple) in China—the only entity capable of safely unlocking it while preserving evidence integrity.

“As I said, my lord, the integrity of this MacBook has to be kept safe and that is why I left it in my safe and sealed it in a plastic bag,” Calvin emphasised.

For the Samsung Galaxy S22, he suggested sending the phone to India or Vietnam—countries where Samsung manufactures many devices—for similar specialist extraction.

“My lord, to protect the integrity of those important data, we didn’t want to tamper with them,” he said, contrasting forensic caution with black-market methods that often wipe user data.

Both devices remain sealed and secured, with no passwords provided by the accused.

Calvin submitted his final forensic report to the court, marking the end of his direct testimony.

Defence counsel Deng John Deng, representing Machar, raised concerns about discrepancies in the expert’s report copies provided to the defence.

He noted that the original report for the first accused comprised 26 pages while the copy had 28 pages, with content differences.

For the second accused, the original had 43 pages and the copy 44 pages.

Presiding Judge James Alala Deng assured the court would address the issue by printing pages from the original document and making them available to both prosecution and defence teams.

“The court will look into this and ensure that pages which are not there will be made available to both the prosecution and the defence,” the judge said.

The session was adjourned to Friday, February 13, 2026, when Calvin is scheduled for cross-examination by the defence.

Machar and his co-accused face multiple serious charges, including murder, conspiracy, terrorism, treason, destruction of public property, and crimes against humanity.

Prosecutors allege that SPLA-IO forces, allied with the White Army militia, killed 257 SSPDF soldiers—including commander David Majur Dak—and destroyed or seized military equipment valued at approximately $58 million during the March 2025 attack on the Nasir garrison in Upper Nile State.