Yiannaki forgery case postponed till July 10
The court case against former volunteer commissioner Yiannakis Yiannaki has been postponed till July 10, due to prosecution impediments.
The case was set to continue on Monday morning, however new dates have been set for July 10 and 16, both at 10.30am.
Yiannaki stands accused of having forged a high school diploma, a university degree and a letter of recommendation.
Yiannaki resigned from his role as volunteer commissioner in 2021 amid a media storm over the alleged crimes.
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.
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.