Five prosecution witnesses testified about land in the north utilized by Israeli property developer Simon Aykut as his trial continued on Tuesday.

One of the five is a land registry employee, while the remaining four are relatives of the registered pre-1974 owners of land allegedly developed by Aykut’s company the Afik Group.

Aykut is accused of developing and selling €43 million worth of property on Greek Cypriot land in the north.

The land registry employee, Irene Posporidou, told the court she had prepared and submitted to authorities the details of 19 plots of land in the village of Gastria, near Trikomo, on which buildings had been erected by the Afik Group.

She said these included the details of the registered owners of all but one of the 19 plots.

When cross-examined by the defence, she said the original copies of the maps she used had been created before 1974.

She explained that the information was compiled based on title deeds provided by landowners, with the assistance of village mukhtars and village groundskeepers.

Next up to testify was Maria Mylona Kyprianou, who is originally from the Famagusta district village of Akanthou, and is the administrator of her late mother’s estate.

She told the court she was told two years ago that “a company with foreign interests was developing a plot of land” which belonged to her mother, without her approval.

She added that “a Greek Cypriot lawyer” had approached her sister about the possibility of her selling the property, which was “categorically rejected”, and that on this matter, she has “never sold the plot” and has “no intention to approach” the Immovable Property Commission over her property.

The day’s third witness was Stavros Gerosimou, also originally from Akanthou.

He told the court that his cousins own a plot of land near the village, causing the defence to object that his testimony was hearsay.

The court rejected this objection, and Gerosimou then said that after being given information by his cousin, who lives abroad, he had visited the area and found “extensive residential development” but was unable to tell whether that development was taking place on land owned by his cousins.

Next to speak was Theognosia Sotiriou, from the Kyrenia district village of Ayios Amvrosios.

She said that she and her siblings had inherited a plot near the village, and they had been aware of development on that plot “for two or three years”.

She added she had seen the development for herself during a visit to the north and closed her testimony by telling the court that neither she nor any of her relatives sold the property or gave any permission for any construction to take place.

The day’s final witness was Giorgos Papageorgiou, who spoke on behalf of his father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

Papageorgiou’s father is the owner of land in Akanthou, and Papageorgiou told the court he never sold that property or gave permission for any development to occur, but that despite this, he had been informed by the police that property had been developed.

The court scheduled the next hearing of Aykut’s trial for September 15.

Meanwhile, Aykut’s son Yaacov Afik released a statement to mark 500 days since his father was arrested, criticising the Republic of Cyprus for the way he has been treated.

He compared the case being faced by his father to that being faced by the five Greek Cypriots who were arrested in the north, and said that “while political and diplomatic campaigns are being carried out for the Greek Cypriots, silence prevails for 75-year-old cancer patient Simon, who has been imprisoned in the south for 500 days”.

He added that he applied to the European Court of Human Rights over his father’s case six months ago, but that the case is “still pending”.