The plagiarism expert finds it visibly difficult to tell in front of the running exxpressTV camera what she experienced when the plagiarism scandal surrounding Alma Zadic’s doctoral thesis broke in January: “That was just a day later, after some media called my name when reporting on the Zadic case in January.”
The Viennese woman was then told by “a prosecutor” and “an employee of a district court” the day after January 15, when her name appeared in some media: “In my custody case for my child, it would now depend on me ‘behave’ me. I was literally told to ‘keep the ball low and keep quiet’. I was really appalled.” And Katharina Renner says clearly: “Of course there was a connection with my public negative assessment of the Minister of Justice’s dissertation, there is definitely a connection.”
The plagiarism appraiser in an interview: “It was an attempt to put pressure on me. I should no longer speak publicly about Alma Zadic’s doctoral thesis.”
The full-time plagiarism appraiser, who also often works with the well-known plagiarism hunter Stefan Weber, took a close look at Zadic’s 220-page dissertation before the publication of the new, comprehensive appraisal: “I’m really very disappointed with the University of Vienna that this work was enough for a dissertation.”
In the exxpressTV interview, Katharina Renner also confirms the opinion of Stefan Weber and the German expert Martin Heidingsfelder: “There was definitely plagiarism. Zadic also adopted her conclusions from other authors – that’s not possible.”
It is important to her that the word “decency” is observed again, emphasizes Katharina Renner in the exxpressTV interview: “I am very concerned about the state of our judiciary if all this is possible.” And she also doesn’t understand “some media” that don’t report on such events – what happened there is shocking. Renner: “The state of affairs in the public prosecutor’s office is questionable.”
As reported, the Minister of Justice, who is still in office, refuses any interview with eXXpress on this matter. The entire new plagiarism report, in which experts have documented 73 parts of plagiarism in Alma Zadic’s doctoral thesis, has already been handed over to the University of Vienna, where a concrete examination of the suspected case is now taking place – but this can take months.
A question about the plagiarism scandal that more and more readers of eXXpress are asking: How long will the Federal President stand by and do nothing about this political scandal, which is further shaking the confidence of Austrians in politics?