Witnesses tell how they paid £250 for citizenship certificate

Cemal Kazankiran, from Tottenham in London, said he paid 250 to a middle man to acquire a Life In The UK certificate from City Wide Learning, which was based in Broomhall.

Mr Kazankiran, who was initially smuggled into the UK from Turkey in a lorry, told Sheffield Crown Court he paid money to a man he knew only as "Mehmet", but whom the prosecution has identified as Mehmet Ince.

He is one of six men accused of conspiring to defraud the UK Border Agency, between October 2005 and February 2007, by dishonestly arranging – with Mohamad Jafari, another man called Shpetim Yemeri and unknown others -–for immigrants to receive Life In The UK pass certificates.

Three of them – Liban Mohammed Yousif, Abdi Rashid Yusuf and Mustafa Yassin – are directors of City Wide and a fourth, Mubarak Yusuf, worked for the company. All four are from Sheffield. The other two alleged conspirators are Mehmet Ince, from London, and Halil Dari, from Sheffield.

All six men appearing at Sheffield Crown Court deny the charge. Jafari, from the West Midlands, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

Mr Kazankiran, who was granted asylum after arriving in 2001, applied for citizenship in 2006.

He said Ince, whom he knew as a Turkish interpreter working from an office in Tottenham, told him he could acquire a Life In The UK test certificate, which is a legal requirement when applying for full citizenship. A good standard of English is required for the computer-based test, which cost 34 to take legitimately. But Mr Kazankiran said he could neither read nor write English.

"He said I will get it for you, come back two weeks later. After I got the certificate, I gave him the money."

Another witness originally from Turkey, Hasan Yas, also told the court he paid 250 to a man in Tottenham for a false test certificate from City Wide Learning. Although Yas could not identify the man, David Brooke, prosecuting, told the jury that the fingerprints of Ince and City Wide Learning director Abdi Rashid Yusuf were found on his test candidate details form.

The hearing continues.