What is the purpose of を in this sentence?


I'm playing through Ace Attorney's Japanese release to get reading experience,
and decided to replay the first case, this time to focus on sentence
structures.

Not long after progressing past the first testimony (where you prove the
witness was wrong regarding the time at which the murder happened by a margin
of 2 hours), the judge says this, in response to the prosecutor objecting that
the witness simply made a trivial mistake:

> ...私には、そうは思えません。山野さん。どうして、死体を見つけた時間を２時だと...？

The meaning of the sentence comes across as clear to me - roughly, "I can't
agree with that. Yamano-san, what's the reason for you saying that you
discovered the body at 2 P.M.?"

However, I don't understand why the judge uses that last を. Is there a reason
why it wouldn't be "時間が２時" instead? It doesn't look like there's an omitted
verb there, as the だと implies the Judge is just quoting.

I'm most certainly missing something. I would like to know what the last を
does in this sentence and if it's an established use of the particle.




Based on _A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar_ , page 521, 思う can
take を inside the quoted と clause:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9937s.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9937s.png)

As the image explains, the を version here translates to:

> What's the reason for you saying that the time you discovered the body to be
> 2 pm?




Based on _A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar_ , page 521, 思う can
take を inside the quoted と clause:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9937s.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9937s.png)

As the image explains, the を version here translates to:

> What's the reason for you saying that the time you discovered the body to be
> 2 pm?

