Iranian Interior Minister's Oxford Degree Apparently Fake, Riddled With Spelling Errors

CAIRO, Egypt  —  Iran's new interior minister has raised an uproar among lawmakers and Iranian media over an apparently fake claim that he holds an honorary doctorate from Britain's Oxford University. To back his case, he's shown off a degree certificate riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes.

Oxford issued a statement Wednesday denying it ever awarded Ali Kordan an honorary doctorate of law, as he claimed to parliament before it approved his appointment to the post earlier this month.

The Interior Ministry put out a copy of the degree, with an Oxford seal and dated June 2000, aiming to prove its authenticity.

But in the certificate, "entitled" is misspelled "intitled," and it says Kordan was granted the degree "to be benefitted from its scientific privileges."

The clumsily worded document says Kordan "has shown a great effort in preparing educational materials and his research in the domain of comparative law,that has opened a new chapter,not only in our university,but, to our knowledge,in this country" — leaving out spaces after all but one of the commas. It was published in several Iranian papers this week.

Oxford said in its statement that it "has no record of Mr. Ali Kordan receiving an honorary doctorate or any other degree from the university." It added that the three professors whose alleged signatures are on the certificate have all held posts at the university at some stage but none of them work in the field of law and none would sign degree certificates.