Yiannaki trial postponed again, court tells both sides to hurry up

The trial of former volunteer commissioner Yiannakis Yiannaki, who stands accused of having forged a high school diploma, a university degree, and a letter of recommendation, was postponed again on Monday, with the court issuing a “stern warning” to both the prosecution and the defence to speed proceedings up.

Judge Nicole Gregoriou set the next hearing for Wednesday, before telling the court that “if there is not a sufficient number of witnesses before the court, I will see how to proceed”.

Prosecution lawyer Marina Masoura, meanwhile, said that no witnesses have yet been called and pointed out that she is “supposed to be present” at another case.

She added that she and defence lawyer Petros Stavrou had “agreed to prepare” a list of admissible facts, so as to be able to “further limit the number of witnesses who need to be called”.

She added that a “large number” of witnesses are expected to be called, and that once the list of “admissible facts” has been agreed upon, “only the necessary witnesses will be able to be presented”.

Gregoriou then said she does not consider it necessary to “repeat the issue of time pressure”, because she has already done so “repeatedly”.

“I hoped that it would be understood by all sides,” she said.

The trial began in November last year, with 15 prosecution witnesses already having been heard, and five more yet to be heard.

Yiannaki has already pled guilty to three of the eight charges which he faced, with those charges having related to having knowingly circulated forged documents. His trial is now continuing over the remaining five charges.

He resigned from his role as volunteer commissioner in 2021 amid a media storm when the allegations came to light.

The case had drawn intense social media scrutiny, with pictures of crudely doctored documents doing the rounds.

In 2022, then police spokesman Christos Andreou had said that the San Diego State University, the university in the United States at which Yiannaki had claimed to have studied, said it had no knowledge of or ever even heard of him.

He said that the police had received oral confirmation from the university in question that Yiannaki never graduated from the institution.

“The case is essentially concluded but we are waiting for this piece of evidence… once we receive it, we can assess which offences may have been committed,” he said.

A picture of his university degree, a bachelor’s in civil engineering issued in 1992, had circulated, with the certificate bearing the signatures of four officials, one of whom is Edmund Gerald Brown Jr, cited as California governor.

However, Brown was not California governor in 1992, having served between 1975 and 1983 and then between 2011 and 2019. In 1992, Brown was putting together a run for the United States’ presidency, but came second in the Democratic party’s primary race to then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.

Apparent tampering with Yiannaki’s high school diploma and his university degree, was discovered by the auditor-general of the day Odysseas Michaelides after he received an anonymous complaint about the issue.

During the case so far, Yiannaki has been through two lawyers, with Yiannis Polychronis having walked out in November last year following a warning from judge Gregoriou about contempt of court, and his successor Thanasis Korfiotis asked to withdraw from the case citing “ongoing disagreements” between himself and his client.