A bug wrongly attributed messages to a pro-Palestine activist accused of terrorism charges, the Royal Court heard on the second day of her trial.
Natalie Strecker, who has been involved with the Jersey Palestine Solidarity Campaign and describes herself as a human rights campaigner, is accused of two offences related to inviting support for a proscribed organisation.
The 50-year-old denies both charges, which relate to social media posts in which she allegedly invited support for Hamas and Hezbollah. One charge relates to posts about Hamas, and one charge relates to posts about Hezbollah.
Mrs Strecker’s trial in the Royal Court, in front of two Jurats, is now in its second day.
Giving evidence this morning, Detective Constable Luke Freeman – who took over the case from other officers – said the States of Jersey Police had downloaded more than 50,000 posts and messages from Ms Strecker’s devices.
He explained police had used specific search terms in the investigation.
Advocate Mark Boothman, defending, asked him if these terms included “resist”, “terrorism”, “Hamas” and “Hezbollah” – which DC Freeman confirmed.
The advocate said that, after reviewing the posts, police officers had landed on “a very limited number of about 35 messages”, and DC Freeman agreed.
The police officer added that a bug caused some messages in the download to be wrongly attributed to Ms Strecker.
Advocate Boothman said: “You have reviewed her second transcript and in her second interview, the defendant was clear that many of these messages had been wrongly attributed to her.”
DC Freeman replied: “That is correct, yes.”
He added that this was corrected when the bug was fixed.
Advocate Boothman suggested: “In fact, during the course of the investigation, she has been completely frank about what she has and hasn’t said.”
Crown Advocate Luke Sette is prosecuting.
Commissioner Sir John Saunders is presiding with Jurats Jane Ronge and Karen Le Cornu sitting.