The conference volume “Colchicine – 100 years of Research” (1982), which allegedly comes from Romania and the GDR and put Matthias Graw under suspicion, is probably one of the rarest books in the world. His only intention is slander.
Image: Vincent Forstenlechner
The public prosecutors are now investigating the plagiarism intrigue against the forensic doctor Matthias Graw. According to research by the F.A.Z. the suspect was embroiled in a similar scandal in the UK.
The false allegations of plagiarism against Matthias Graw, head of forensic medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, have legal repercussions. As the Munich public prosecutor announced on request, they are conducting proceedings against the F.A.Z. At the end of October, Rainer identified Otto Z. “for forgery, defamation, copyright infringement and fraud”. The investigations were not completed, the plagiarism examiners Stefan Weber and Martin Heidingsfelder, who had raised the allegations against Graw on the basis of a forged Romanian conference proceedings (“Colchicine – 100 years of Research”), were questioned. The public prosecutor’s office does not reveal whether the accused Z. – apparently the client of the plagiarism checker – also testified. Graw can take civil action against the alleged mastermind of the intrigue.
About the accused Z., born in 1954, who, as can be seen from documents available to this newspaper, mostly had the first name Rainer until about 2000, since then mainly Otto, occasionally Rainer Otto, can be determined on the basis of research by the F.A.Z. and cues from readers create a resume. For example, Rainer Z. wrote a dissertation in the chemistry department of the Freie Universität Berlin from 1984, which, in line with the forged conference proceedings, has a biochemical focus. At the same time, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. According to information from the University of Vienna, only two and a half years after his doctoral examination in chemistry, Z. received a Dr. medical univ. acquired, which, however, no German “Dr. med.” with a dissertation, but corresponds to a diploma. Since Z. at the Bavarian Medical Association as Dr. medical univ., it can be assumed that the description of his scientific qualification with the academic degrees “Dr. Dr.” or “Dr. re. of course dr med.”, which Z. sometimes used in Germany, is not reproduced correctly.