Lawyer Amr Abdel-Salam has filed a complaint with the Egyptian Public Prosecutor, accusing Mohamed Abdel-Latif, the new Minister of Education and Technical Education in the Egyptian government, of forging his doctoral degree. The complaint is based on a post from a Facebook page that questioned the existence of Cardiff City University in the U.S., which the minister claimed in his CV as the institution from which he earned his doctorate.
Amr Abdel-Salam confirmed in his complaint that the biography of the new Minister of Education and Technical Education was published in the Egyptian media, prompting a fact-checking Facebook page to investigate the legitimacy of a U.S. university named Cardiff City, according to "Cairo 24."
The page confirmed that the university is fictitious and has no real campus, though it possesses a website that offers to sell unrecognized doctoral degrees for a payment of $10,000, without having a university campus or faculty members.
Additionally, it was noted that the alleged university published images on its site claiming to show its premises, only for it to be revealed that the pictures were of a building belonging to Trinity College at the University of Cambridge.
Amr Abdel-Salam called for an urgent investigation to verify the authenticity of the doctoral degree obtained by Mohamed Abdel-Latif. He stated that if the circulated information is proven to be true, it would imply a crime of forgery regarding the doctoral degree and its use in his application for positions to the Council of Ministers and the Presidency for appointment as Minister of Education and Technical Education, with the knowledge of the forgery.
It is worth mentioning that Mohamed Abdel-Latif has worked in the education sector for 25 years before his selection as Minister of Education and Technical Education, and he held the position of executive director of the Nermin Ismail Schools, founded by his mother.