A civil engineer on Tuesday denied authoring a reference letter for former volunteerism commissioner Yiannakis Yiannaki as the latter had claimed, as the trial continued into his forgery of his high school diploma, university degree and other documents.

Yiannaki has plead guilty to three charges related to the circulation of a forged document. However, he continues to deny accusations of having forged three separate documents himself.

Appearing before the Nicosia District Court, Giorgos Antoniou rejected claims that he had ever drafted such a letter during Yiannaki’s employment at the now-defunct construction firm J&P in the early 1990s.

“Whoever wrote that letter must have been a complete fool, excuse my language,” Antoniou said.

“The company had ISO certification. No one would have jeopardised their position to issue such a document.”

The letter in question is among several documents central to the ongoing case against Yiannaki who resigned from public office once the forgeries were revealed after which an official inquiry was launched into his credentials.

The court also heard testimony from Aristos Kakoutas, former head of the tender department at J&P, who said that in the summer of 1992 he was informed by then-general director Kyriakos Antoniades that Yiannaki would be joining the company’s cost estimation department.

Kakoutas told the court it was standard procedure for all new employees to submit academic qualifications, particularly as the firm regularly tendered for public contracts and needed to demonstrate the professional competence of its staff.

According to Kakoutas, Yiannaki failed to provide the required documentation despite repeated requests and was subsequently reassigned to a construction site in Larnaca before leaving the company altogether.

Kakoutas also cast doubt on the authenticity of the reference letter attributed to the company, noting that it bore the logo J&P Lim rather than the J&P Ltd, which was used on all formal correspondence.

The trial was adjourned and is set to resume on April 30, May 8 and May 26.

The court instructed both the defence and prosecution to explore the possibility of reaching agreement on the admissibility of certain witnesses. Yiannaki’s lawyer Petros Stavrou, was tasked with holding discussions with the representative of the prosecution.

Suspicions about Yiannaki’s qualifications first arose when then auditor-general Odysseas Michaelides received an anonymous complaint.

It gained widespread attention on social media after images of crudely altered documents circulated. One such image showed a high school diploma where the written score for modern Greek and English read “thirteen,” but the numerical figure next to it had been changed to “19” in pen.