Iranian minister sacked over fake degree

This article is more than 10 years old
Parliament fires interior minister who claimed he had an honorary doctorate from Oxford
Former Iranian interior minister Ali Kordan
Kordan (bottom) addresses parliament at his impeachment hearing. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images

The Iranian interior minister, Ali Kordan, has been sacked for deception, following an impeachment hearing for faking a degree from Oxford University.

A total of 188 MPs out of the 247 present voted to impeach Kordan, who claimed he had been awarded an honorary doctorate of law by Oxford, while 14 were against the motion and 45 abstained.

The bogus degree was uncovered in August, when MPs questioned the authenticity of Kordan's qualifications shortly after his appointment to the post of interior minister.

Kordan produced the degree, dated June 2000, but its poor grammar only inflamed the controversy, as did the fact that none of the signatories had ever worked in law at Oxford.

The university said it had "no record of Mr Ali Kordan receiving an honorary doctorate or any other degree from the university.

"Professor Edmund Rolls, Professor Peter Bryant and Professor Alan Cowey have all at some stage held posts at the University of Oxford. However, none of them work in the field of law, and none of them would sign degree certificates."

According to the university, only distinguished scholars are normally awarded honorary doctorates.

Ali Kordan's degree

Both conservative and moderate MPs called for Kordan, a former member of the revolutionary guard, to resign or face a no-confidence vote in the parliament and be dismissed from his cabinet post.

The president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called the move to impeach Kordan illegal because he did not commit any wrongdoing while in office, the state-run news agency, Irna, reported yesterday.

Ahmadinejad had previously dismissed the controversy as a row over "a piece of torn paper". The president refused to show up to defend Kordan in an apparent protest to the impeachment.

However, he said that his administration would abide by any decision made by the parliament.