A cheater, found also to be a liar

Kamran Daneshju, Ahmadinejad's nominee for the position of "Minister of Science, Research and Technology" which manages universities across the nation is faced with serious questions regarding his academic credentials even though he has been teaching at the University of Science and Technology of Iran as a professor and also acquiring many important positions in government as a result of his degrees.

In his CV for this Ministry he claims to have acquired a doctorate degree in Aerospace Engineering from "London College." However throughout history, no university has ever existed under such a name in the UK.

Let's assume that the meaning of the words have gotten lost in translation and what was meant by "London College" was actually "Imperial College London" or "University College London." Therefore we enter Mr. Daneshju's University webpage at the University of Science and Technology to find the exact name of his University. But to our astonishment, his webpage names the "University of Manchester" as the place where he acquired his PhD. This contradiction causes us to look deeper and check the English version of Mr. Daneshju's webpage. There, we find a different name for the same university: "Manchester Imperial Institute of Science and Technology, U.K." which is not by any means associated with the "University of Manchester."

A simple google search for "Manchester Imperial Institute of Science and Technology, U.K." (which is an institute and not even a university) reveals that Mr. Daneshju's webpage is the only place on the internet where this title has been used. Interestingly "Queen Mary" university is also named as one of Mr. Daneshju's place of study and is located in London but is not related to the name "London College" in any way and is named as Mr. Daneshu's university for his Bachelor's degree and not Doctorate.

These inconsistencies, made us investigate Mr. Daneshju's academic credentials further by searching for his long list publications as listed on his University webpage. There we go through each and and every one his publications and find that Mr. Daneshju does not have a single publication under the name of the British universities at which he studied. According to his webpage Mr. Daneshju's first publication dates back to 1999. Amazingly, he does not specify any dates for any of his degrees and his previous positions show that since 1989 Mr. Daneshju has remained in Iran and therefore it is impossible for him to have studied his Master's and PhD in London and not to have released a single scientific publication and to then suddenly have his first publication in 1999.

A search for the different of variations of Mr. Daneshju's name in the library of Imperial College London does not yield any results. Therefore nothing can be found that could support his claim of having studied in the UK for his doctorate degree.

We dig deeper and assume for the sake of argument that Mr. Daneshju might have been one of the eight students that had been expelled from the UK over the Salman Rushdi controversy and obtained their PhDs in Iran. If proven to be true, this will expose the claim of having studied in Manchester or London as a lie. We then come across a report in the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) which dates back to the 16th March 2008. The report quotes Mr. Daneshju as saying that he "was expelled from the UK over the Salman Rushdi case along with seven other students" and "were barred from entering the UK or any Schengen member state."

Therefore Mr. Daneshju had been expelled from the UK and therefore never had the chance to obtain any degrees. This is the first blatant lie. Mr. Daneshju calims that he was expelled from the UK in 1989 and yet in the mean time,(according to his other claims) he was able to obtain 3 academic degrees from that country. Such a lie should be enough to prevent Mr. Daneshju from becoming Iran's Minister for Science, Research and Technology.

However there are more inconsistencies that follow. Assuming that he obtained his PhD degree in Iran, which university was it from? Our investigation into two universities of Sharif and Science and Technology show no trace of Mr. Daneshu's name in their publications.

It would appropriate for the independent members of parliament to question Mr. Daneshju regarding his degrees from "London College" and the "Imperial Manchester Imperial Institute of Science and Technology"? If he has indeed obtained equivalent degrees in Iran, shouldn't these members of parliament ask about the name of his university or about his publications?

Another concern is that Mr. Daneshju has the scientific rank of Professor at the University where he has taught for years. A rank which is very difficult to obtain and requires many the publications of many journals and supervising numerous researches conducted by students in the PhD and M.Sc level. When one compares Mr. Daneshju's résumé to that of another academic staff at the same university which has incidentally also studied at Manchester University, we have to ask ourselves the following question. How is it that one is able to obtain key executive positions in government such as governor, deputy Interior Ministry, etc and the other manages to remain an Associate Professor after many years despite having more publications and a much better academic track record?

Kamran Daneshju, was the head of the election committee of the Interior Ministry and had been appointed by Ali Kordan as the deputy of this ministry. Less than 2 months after signing Daneshju's appointment to the position, Kordan was removed from his position due to the falsification of his academic degree. Is it now Daneshju's turn? If it is proven that Mr. Daneshju's documents have indeed been falsified, can we not suspect that such a person would play an active role in the rigging of votes and lie about the election results on national Television?