Israel Matzav

Iranian minister to sue person who sold him fake Oxford degree

P.T. Barnum used to say that there's a sucker born every minute. One such sucker might be one Ali Kordan, the interior minister in the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Kordan apparently fell for one of the most common scams on the Internet today: He purchased a degree from England's prestigious Oxford University based on his 'life experience.' It goes without saying that the degree - which he has now 'held' for eight years - was a fake.

"In a letter to the president on Saturday, Ali Kordan said he had pressed charges against the person who claimed to represent Oxford University in Tehran as soon as he realized his degree was fake," the government daily Iran said.

Pressure has been mounting on Kordan after Britain's prestigious university denied awarding him any qualification through a representative.

"Over the past eight years, I never doubted the validity of the degree and that's why I presented it in the course of the confidence vote," Kordan wrote in his letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The minister, who was appointed in August, said he approached Oxford University after MPs cast doubt on his degree, but "to my utter disbelief, the university did not confirm (the degree) when my representative went there."

The degree had been issued for his "managerial and executive experience and for submitting a thesis to Oxford University via a person who had opened an affiliate office in Tehran in English-language affairs," the minister said.

Kordan said his search for the intermediary had proven fruitless and that he had filed a complaint against the unnamed person on September 14.

So Kordan pressed charges against an imaginary 'intermediary' who can no longer be found if he ever existed. Anyone else think that Kordan is lying after getting caught with his pants down and that he knew all along that the 'degree' wasn't real? Why did he think he could get something for nothing?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:54 PM