Second politician quits over plagiarism charge

A SECOND German politician has been stripped of a doctorate after a university ruled she plagiarised parts of her dissertation.

The University of Heidelberg's yesterday withdrew Silvana Koch-Mehrin's PhD.

In March, defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned and was stripped of his doctorate after it emerged he copied parts of his thesis.

After he resigned, contributors to a website started an examination of other doctorates and allegations emerged against Ms Koch-Mehrin.

Last month, she resigned as vice-president of the European Parliament and from the leadership board of her Free Democratic Party, the junior partner in Germany's governing coalition. She said she didn't want to be a "target for attacks".

The dean of Heidelberg's doctorate committee, Manfred Berg, said his panel has now concluded that her thesis "consists of plagiarisms in substantial parts".

In a statement she said that her thesis was "not free of weaknesses, not seldom imprecise, superficial and sometimes downright inaccurate", but the conclusions were her own.

The thesis was titled Historical currency union between economics and politics: The Latin Monetary Union 1865-1927.