TRNC ‘parliament’ refuses to approve the prosecution of deputy over alleged fake degree

The TRNC ‘parliament’ on Tuesday refused to approve a request filed by the chief public prosecutor’s office to lift the immunity of a member of parliament of the UBP party Emrah Yesilirmak over his alleged involvement in the “fake diploma scandal”.

The vote comes following the submission of a report on the matter written by a five-person ad hoc committee formed to examine the request. That committee was made up of three ‘MPs’ from the UBP and two from opposition party the CTP, with the committee’s decision split along party lines.

The UBP members, Oguzhan Hasipoglu, Hasan Kucuk, and Ahmet Savasan, had argued that the request for the immunity to be lifted was politically motivated, writing in the report that it is “not clear or explicit which action constitutes a crime”.

They drew attention to the fact that former Turkish Cypriot chief negotiator Kudret Ozersay had drawn public attention to the matter of Yesilirmak’s degree, and that prior to joining the UBP, Yesilirmak had been a member of Ozersay’s party the HP.

As such, the report said, Ozersay had “attempted to manipulate public opinion for political purposes” by sharing “more than a hundred posts” on social media about the authenticity or otherwise of Yesilirmak’s degree.

The UBP members also said that “if there is a claim of academic inadequacy regarding a degree, the institution which has the legal authority to determine this is, in the first place, [the TRNC’s higher education accreditation authority] Yodak, and not the police”.

The committee’s two CTP members, Ongun Talat and Urun Solyali, argued that Yesilirmak’s immunity should have been lifted, stating that the committee’s only job was to examine whether the allegation was “serious” and whether it had political purposes.

On the former, they found that the allegations levelled against Yesilirmak were “not superficial, nor unfounded”, and that the file sent by the chief public prosecutor’s office regarding Yesilirmak included “over 21 witnesses, police reports, and comprehensive statements”.

“The gravity of the charges alone may not be sufficient to lift immunity, but the serious of the accusation is indisputable,” they wrote.

On the matter of whether the case had political motivations, they wrote that there are “almost 20 more” files regarding criminal charges similar to the allegations levelled against Yesilirmak.

They also stressed that Yesilirmak’s immunity should have been lifted “for his right to defence and acquittal”, given that he will now not be able to clear his name in a court of law until after he ceases to be an ‘MP’, should he be innocent.

Yesilirmak received a degree in business administration from Morphou’s now-infamous Cyprus Health and Social Sciences University (KSTU), with rumours surrounding the possibility it was forged having first surfaced in February last year.

The report made it explicit that he received a bachelor’s degree from the university’s department of business administration, which has since been suspended by Yodak, “despite not attending classes and exams”.

He has insisted throughout the last 15 months that he is innocent, and that while the KSTU may have been involved in crime, he fulfilled his obligations to receive a degree.

The fake diploma scandal rocked the north’s education sector last year, with numerous high-profile figures having been arrested so far and cases now making their way through the courts.

KSTU secretary-general and 30-per-cent shareholder Serdal Gunduz will next appear in court on March 18, while former ‘education minister’ Kemal Durust, who served three separate stints in the role between 2009 and 2016, is also set to go on trial for his role in the scandal.

Elsewhere, his wife and high-level civil servant Meray Durust, former chairman of the north’s higher education accreditation authority (Yodak) Turgay Avci and board member Mehmet Hasguler, and Ersin Tatar’s bodyguard Serif Avcil have all also been arrested.

Cyprus Mail