Erhan Yesilirmak, the brother of under fire Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition ‘MP’ Emrah Yesilirmak, jumped seven metres out of a window and broke his ankle while trying to evade arrest on Sunday.

The Turkish Cypriot police explained that a warrant had previously been put out for Yesilirmak’s arrest and that he was spotted in an “entertainment venue” in Kyrenia in the early hours of Sunday morning.

With the police closing in, he jumped out of a second-floor window in an attempt to escape but broke his ankle upon landing.

He was initially taken to Kyrenia’s Dr Akcicek hospital, before being transferred to northern Nicosia’s Dr Burhan Nalbantoglu hospital, where he remains under arrest.

Though the reason for Yesilirmak’s arrest has not been made public, he has been arrested in the past for domestic violence, having allegedly physically assaulted both his girlfriend and his ex-wife.

A police officer had told a court in Kyrenia in 2023 that Yesilirmak had “punched his girlfriend in the face”, though the woman withdrew her complaint she had filed against him.

His brother, ruling coalition party UBP ‘MP’ Emrah Yesilirmak, only avoided being prosecuted himself earlier this month when the north’s ‘parliament’ voted 27 to 20 to not lift his immunity over his alleged involvement in the “fake diploma scandal”.

The north’s chief public prosecutor’s office had filed a request for his immunity to be lifted, but following a recommendation to reject the request was filed in a report by the three UBP ‘MPs’ on the five-person committee, Yesilirmak was spared prosecution.

Yesilirmak received a degree in business administration from Morphou’s now-infamous Cyprus Health and Social Sciences University (KSTU), with rumours surrounding the possibility it was forged having first surfaced in February last year.

The committee’s report made it explicit that he received a bachelor’s degree from the university’s department of business administration, which has since been suspended by Yodak, “despite not attending classes and exams”.

However, its three UBP members, Oguzhan Hasipoglu, Hasan Kucuk and Ahmet Savasan, had argued that the request for the immunity to be lifted was politically motivated, writing in the report that it is “not clear or explicit which action constitutes a crime”.

The fake diploma scandal rocked the north’s education sector last year, with numerous high-profile figures having been arrested so far and cases now making their way through the courts.

KSTU secretary-general and 30-per-cent shareholder Serdal Gunduz appeared in court for the latest of his hearings on Monday, while former ‘education minister’ Kemal Durust, who served three separate stints in the role between 2009 and 2016, is also set to go on trial for his role in the scandal.

Elsewhere, his wife and high-level civil servant Meray Durust, former chairman of the north’s higher education accreditation authority (Yodak) Turgay Avci and board member Mehmet Hasguler, and Ersin Tatar’s bodyguard Serif Avcil have all also been arrested.