Izvor: N1
Sinisa Mali, Serbia's Finance Minister, appealed the Faculty of Organisational Sciences (FON) decision to publicly condemn him for "non-academic" behaviour for using other people's work in his thesis without the attribution, the Beta news agency reported on Friday.
FON, where Mali received his PhD title, accepted the University Ethics Board recommendation, harshen the condemnation, but did not discuss whether the doctorate was plagiarism although several members demanded that.
Mali then said he was happy that it was proved it wasn't plagiarism and said would respect the FON's ruling, understanding he made mistake by omitting some sources.
However, following the appeals of over a couple of hundreds of professors and academicians who demanded the ruling on "piracy", Mali changed his mind and, according to Ivanka Popovic, the Belgrade University Rector, three appeals were filed – Mali's and two by his lawyers.
Popovic told the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CINS) that all appeals by professors were jointly filed to the Ethnic Board on November 8 and that those three came in later.
She couldn't say more about the appeals but asked the public and media to have patience until the final decision expected on November 22.
"We all want this to be over soon since it burdens the University," Popovic said.
