Two leading Spanish politicians facing calls to resign over claims they FAKED their master’s degrees

Two Spanish politicians are facing calls to resign over claims they obtained their master’s degrees fraudulently.

Cristina Cifuentes, head of the Madrid region and a member of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP), is suspected of obtaining the qualification from the public King Juan Carlos University in Madrid by forging the grades for two units, local media reported.

Pablo Casado, an MP and the party’s deputy communications chief, is also accused of faking a degree from the university

He told a press conference on Monday that he wasn’t expected to attend classes or sit exams for his degree.

The opposition Socialists demanded Cifuentes’ resignation after she defended herself in front of regional lawmakers last week.

Prosecutors are probing the case after the university rector himself admitted the document attesting she had passed it was a ‘re-construction’ of the original.

According to Eldiario.es, Cifuentes wasn’t the kind of student who regularly attended classes, took exams or did the work for her degree in regional law.

But she passed some subjects by forging the signatures of false professors.

After the website broke the story last month, she denied the allegations and threatened to sue the publication.

She produced a certificate, but two of the three people whose names was on that document said their signatures were forged.

Meanwhile, the university said it can’t find Cifuentes’ dissertation.

When pressed to provide her master’s thesis as proof, she claimed to have lost it while moving house.
Laura Nuño, the deputy director of the Institute of Public Law, where Cifuentes claims to have studied, resigned on Tuesday, according to the Guardian.

She said she found out her signature had been forged on documents claiming Cifuentes took the course in 2012.

A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office confirmed a probe was underway into the alleged forgery of an official document, which is a criminal offence in Spain, on Thursday.

‘After the appearance of information that suggests a crime may have been committed, the university decided to transfer it to the ministry to investigate,’ the university said in a statement.

 

 

 

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