The man, whose identity is being protected, told the Court that while he’s had no formal IT training, he is indeed a computer security expert who had been involved in testing computer systems to see how they hold up to external threats. He admitted working for American, Australian and Danish companies.

The 21-year-old Dane refused to say whether he knows Gottfrid on the grounds that he could be attacked in prison. He did admit to having previously heard about Gottfrid, however.

“Most people in the IT sector have heard of him,” he said.

The Dane also admitted to traveling to Cambodia to visit friends and smoke cannabis, but denied that he went there to meet Gottfrid at his apartment.

The prosecution also presented some emails in which the man said that CSC, the IT company involved in the hack, was owned by the CIA, but he dismissed that comment as a joke.

Discussion also returned to the IRC conversations referenced in the first week of the trial which reportedly took place between ‘My Evil Twin’ (allegedly Gottfrid) and ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat’ (allegedly the 21-year-old).

Much was made in week one of potentially altered Internet Relay Chat (IRC) logs presented by the prosecution. This week the Dane admitted that he had been involved in some conversations and had actually met ‘My Evil Twin’. That person was not Gottfrid, he said.

In respect of the content of some chats, the Dane said the topic had indeed centered around the security of IT systems but he insisted that there we no plans to hack CSC or any other companies’ computers. Usernames and passwords of CSC systems that were allegedly exchanged during the IRC chats had been found using Google, he added.

Also of note during the day’s proceedings was the Dane’s continued refusal to provide police with encryption keys to examine the contents of his laptop.

“There is no material on my computer. I can not see how it would make this a better situation,” he told the court.

However, DR.dk reported that during the day, due to the nature of the evidence being presented, it became clear that police had managed to retrieve some information without access to the keys.

After a day’s break in proceedings, on Friday renowned activist and security expert Jacob Appelbaum appeared as an expert witness for the defense. Appelbaum also appeared in Gottfrid’s Swedish trial, a case in which he was partly acquitted.

The prosecution previously complained that Appelbaum knows Gottfrid personally, so was unsuitable as an expert witness. The American denied that was the case.

“I’ve only talked a little with Gottfrid as he is not known as a sociable guy. He is not easy to approach and the times that I’ve seen him in social situations it has always been about computer security,” Appelbaum said.

Echoing his testimony in the Swedish case, Appelbaum told the Court that it certainly would have been possible for outsiders to have controlled Gottfrid’s computer to carry out the hack of CSC.

It’s unclear for how long the trial will continue but hearings have been allocated until the end of October.

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Surprise

The trial began on Tuesday but after less than 25 minutes proceedings had to be halted after the prosecution submitted a 27-page document and 92 slides that the defense claimed not to have seen before. Michael Juul Eriksen, defending the 21-year-old, complained but deputy public prosecutor Anders Riisager said there was no obligation to provide all documents up front.

On top of the surprise documentation, the prosecution also provided a never-seen-before video recorded by police when Gottfrid was arrested in Cambodia during 2012. It reportedly showed the Swede’s apartment messy and turned upside down. Gottfrid’s defense lawyer Luise Høj branded the video as “irrelevant” and this start to proceedings didn’t impress Gottfrid’s mother Kristina either.

“Such efforts to disorder the defense and affect the jury are, in my opinion, unworthy of a civilized court process,” Kristina told TF.

“I guess I am very naive in this, but I think that representatives of the community should behave better than that – justice should be considered more important and be paid more respect to than in the way that the prosecutor behaved to begin with that first day. But maybe Denmark has its own ethics in this respect.”

Chat logs

In presenting the case, senior prosecutor Maria Cingali referred to chat logs that took place between two hackers – one allegedly Gottfrid (My Evil Twin) and the other the 21-year-old (Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat). A report in The Local said the logs not only contained chats discussing the hacking of CSC’s database, but also personal details that correspond with those of the 21-year-old.

Remote access

Speaking to the court on Wednesday, Gottfrid continued with the same defense strategy employed in his Swedish case – that third parties had access to his computer and carried out the hacking from there. The 29-year-old also revealed that he’d previously given the police four other nicknames of individuals who had access to his computer. Eraser, Nohyb, RBL and Ripley were reportedly known online as The Lattice Team but Anders Riisager wanted their real names – Gottfrid refused.

“I do not want be called a traitor or a snitch,” he said, going on to criticize the efforts of the prosecution in finding the potential culprits.

“The motivation to investigate has been equal to zero,” he added, pointing out that the Danish authorities had been in possession of these names since 2013.

“There has been every opportunity to find out their names. You have had more than a year to do so,” Gottfrid noted.

“Smear” campaign

In his cross-examination, Riisager invited Gottfrid to comment on an article published on Cambodian forum Khmer440 in 2012 which claimed that the Swede was “messed up on drugs” and “a total recluse” who made contact only with “his dealers and landlord.”

The Swede reacted unfavorably, accusing the prosecution of trying to “smear” him. Someone who shares opposition to these allegations is ‘John’, Gottfrid’s former business partner as revealed in our earlier article. He’s outraged that the prosecution has used information penned by someone with “a grudge” against Gottfrid.

“I should inform you that Khmer440 has accepted that many of the allegations posted about me and Gottfrid were false and defamatory. I have it in writing (the term they used was ‘scurrilous’,” John wrote in an email yesterday to Jens Jorgensen of the Danish police.

“The fact that you have quoted these libelous, provably false accusations written by a man who you know to have a grudge against Gottfrid (and I know that you know, because I personally told you about it during our meeting, and watched you take notes) is absolutely sickening. I can’t imagine what on earth possessed you to do such a thing.”

Did the prosecution edit evidence?

Something else bothering the defense is the authenticity of chat logs provided to the court. The names “Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat” and “My Evil Twin” were seen in chat logs provided by the prosecution yet on Internet Relay Chat, where the chats allegedly took place, names with spaces are truncated. This, the defense says, indicates the logs had been modified.

“The prosecution makes much of the two names. But if you log into this kind of IRC chat with the name ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat,’ you will just be called ‘Advanced,’ because you cannot include spaces. It simply cannot be done to be called ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat,’ so it’s been changed subsequently,” Michael Juul Eriksen argued.

Lost in translation

Speaking with TF yesterday, Kristina said that while Gottfrid is in good spirits, earlier in the week her son “lost his temper” with his interpreter over technical terms not being relayed correctly.

“Gottfrid and his lawyer have complained about this earlier in court, several months ago – and now this happens again,” Kristina said. “Denmark should use its best interpreters in a task like this – and the interpreters themselves should refrain from accepting to do the job it if they feel that they can’t do it well.”

By Friday morning, however, things had improved.

“I just saw a report that Gottfrid and [his new interpreter] smiled at each other when she tried to translate some technical terms,” a good sign, Kristina believes.

The week ends in more drama

The cross-examination of Gottfrid’s co-defendant had been due to begin Friday afternoon, a highly anticipated event since to date the 21-year-old has refused to give any comment to the police. But thanks to the prosecution producing yet more evidence that had not previously been shared with the defense, the court would have to wait.

Defending the 21-year-old, lawyer Michael Juul Eriksen said he couldn’t let the questioning go ahead until the information had been read by the defense.

The trial continues next week.

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