Fatma Unal, who has enjoyed a years-long close personal association with the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel, received her degree from the now infamous Cyprus Health and Social Sciences University (KSTU) in Morphou before registering for classes which she claimed to have passed to get her degree, according to a witness in court on Thursday.

Acting university director Mehmet Altuntas was called as a witness at the court in Morphou, and, according to newspaper Yeniduzen, explained that Unal was first registered at the university on its online registration database on September 9, 2021.

He then said that the following day, Unal’s official date of registration was changed on the database to the spring semester of the same year, and she was then registered to two courses from that semester and given passing grades.

The next intervention on the database, he said, occurred on October 28, 2021, when four courses running during the autumn semester of 2021 were selected by Unal herself.

Later in the hearing, he explained that on September 22, 2022, Unal’s profile on the database was changed to show that she had taken and passed all the courses required and fulfilled all other requirements to graduate.

He said her graduation date was listed as June 15, 2022 – more than three months before the date on which she was registered for the majority of the courses to which she had registered – and that at this point, he contacted the police.

At the same hearing, the court allowed Unal to retain her lawyer, Doga Zeki, ruling against the prosecution’s objection that Zeki’s role in the case constituted a conflict of interest.

The prosecution had objected because Zeki had also worked as the defence lawyer of Serdal Gunduz, the secretary-general of KSTU, who was in November sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of a litany of crimes related to the same scandal.

Defence lawyer Damla Guclu had said at the case’s previous hearing last month that during his own trial, Gunduz had “confessed to giving [Unal] a fake diploma” and said that this fact had made the situation “problematic” and that as such, the court itself should intervene.

Unal faces a total of 12 charges and remains on bail. Her close personal relationship with Ustel saw her rise to the chairwomanship of the UBP Kyrenia district women’s branch, though she was removed from that post by the party last month.

She remains on bail, with the next hearing scheduled for Monday.