Morphou, Cyprus. Turkish Cypriot police told a court they accessed phone communication records involving the north’s ‘parliament speaker’ Ziya Ozturkler and officials from a university in Morphou, amid allegations he coerced them into awarding a degree under false pretences.
Court testimony and alleged phone calls
The claims were raised at Thursday’s hearing in the trial of Fatma Unal, described as a longtime close personal associate of the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel, in testimony by police sergeant Bilger Koral.
Koral said police found that Ozturkler called Serdal Gunduz, the former secretary-general of Morphou’s Cyprus Health and Social Sciences University (KSTU), who was sentenced in November last year to 15 years in jail for his role in the “fake diploma scandal”.
According to Koral, Ozturkler first held a telephone conversation with Unal before immediately calling Gunduz, who then called the university’s student affairs office “to try to get the degree issued”.
Evidence gathered
Koral said police have obtained more than 40 pieces of evidence in the case, including “numerous computers, hard disks, and USB drives”, with digital evidence amounting to 500 gigabytes.
He said the digital evidence includes an academic article attributed to Ozturkler that was found on a computer belonging to Gunduz, and that Ozturkler’s currently used email address appeared on the document.
Koral said there is a “suspicion of plagiarism” regarding the article, but that “no definitive determination has yet been made on this matter”.
Political reactions
Away from court, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, speaking on Kibris Postasi TV, declined to say whether Ozturkler should resign but said “this issue needs to be resolved as soon as possible, otherwise serious problems will arise”.
Erhurman had said on Monday he would discuss Ozturkler at his bi-weekly meeting with Ustel on Tuesday and said, “I am of the opinion that the attitudes which should have been taken regarding these developments has not been taken,” though neither Erhurman nor Ustel made public comments after Tuesday’s meeting.
Opposition party CTP leader Sila Usar Incirli met Turkish Cypriot police chief Ali Adalier on Thursday afternoon to discuss the matter and said afterward she is “deeply disturbed by the fact that politics is being associated with corruption and malpractice in this way”.
What impact do you think these allegations and the ongoing trial could have on public trust in political institutions?
