Ali Kordan

Ovadali Kordan (; 23 October 1958 – 22 November 2009) was an Iranian conservative politician who served in the Revolutionary Guards, the judiciary and as deputy oil minister, before becoming interior minister of Iran in 2008 for just 90 days. He was impeached by the Iranian Parliament on 4 November 2008 after a doctorate he claimed to hold turned out to be fraudulent.

Career Kordan was a former revolutionary guard and a veteran of the Iran–Iraq War. He was appointed deputy oil minister in October 2007, which he had turned down in 2006.

In 2008, President Ahmadinejad nominated Kordan as the interior minister in a cabinet reshuffle. However, during his confirmation debate in the parliament, questions arose among MPs and in the media over his qualifications and over a doctorate he claimed to have received. Kordan replaced Mostafa Pour Mohammadi in the post.

Controversy During his tenure as the deputy head of IRIB in financial affairs, Ali Kordan was accused of a high-profile financial corruption (525 billion Tomans). However the judiciary system did not charge him after a long investigation. Kayhan published an article accusing Kordan of corruption in "The Crescent File".

Kordan claimed to have an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Oxford. When questioned about this, he released a document stating that such a degree had been conferred on him in June 2000 and under-signed by three Oxford University professors. A copy of the certificate was released. Alef, a website "associated with one of Ahmadinejad's critics", pointed to "typing errors, garbled English and misspellings". Responding to an inquiry by Alef news agency, on 11 August 2008, Oxford University denied it had awarded Kordan an honorary doctorate of law or any other degree. Four days later, the university published an official statement on its website that they had no record of Kordan having received any degree, honorary or otherwise.

It noted that none of the professors whose alleged signatures were on the certificate were working in the field of law, and none of them would sign degree certificates. As a result, chairman of Iranian parliament Ali Larijani initiated an investigation into the validity of Kordan's degree. It was later revealed, according to news service MSNBC, that Kordan did not receive two other degrees he had claimed, a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Iran's Azad University. As of 27 August 2008, the ministry of science, research and technology denied announcing any statement on Kordan's doctorate degree. Kordan also accused the media of a smear campaign by portraying him as a "terrorist".

Death Kordan died of multiple myeloma at Tehran's Masih Daneshvari hospital on 22 November 2009 at the age of 51.