With yet another case of plagiarism amongst high ranking Vietnamese academics hitting the headlines, this time the tables are turned as the accused strikes back at his accusers.

Hoang Xuan Que, Vice President of Hanoi’s School of Banking & Finance, stands accused of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis of ten years ago.

Recently having had his doctoral degree invalidated by the head of Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training, HXQ is now suing Pham Vu Luan, Minister of Education and Training, the People’s Court in the capital have confirmed.

MOET made the decision to revoke HXQ’s PhD in October this year after allegations he plagiarized other’s work were confirmed by leading academics.

Despite having successfully defended his thesis in 2003, HXQ faces allegations of plagiarism from three separate people, including the chairman of the board that initially judged his work.

HXQ, an associate professor at the National Economics University, is alleged to have copied an astounding 30% of a paper written in 2002 by Mai Thanh Que, an official at the Banking Academy also located in Ha Noi.

He also stands accused of stealing a further 52.5 pages from the Banking Academy official’s 159-page thesis and pasted them into his own work. A council of academics in the field of economics have since verified and confirmed these allegations as correct.

Hoang Xuan Que has repeatedly denied both the accusation and confirmation, saying he did not plagiarize Thanh Que’s work.

The result of his decision to sue in response to these allegations is yet to be seen.

[Tuoi Tre // Photo via Stewart Rand]