SIE chief Gabriel Vlase plagiarized a book after his PhD

Gabriel Vlase, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE), plagiarized at least 64 pages in a book he published in 2012, at the RAO publishing house, Emilia Șercan reports in PressOne. A day ago, the journalist revealed that Vlase also plagiarized his doctoral thesis.

At least 64 pages of the volume “Elements of geopolitics and international relations” are plagiarized by the head of espionage from a university course signed by Major General (retd) Paul Ionescu, former deputy director of the SIE between 2001 and 2003, according to Emilia Șercan. General Ionescu was close to Gabriel Vlase, to whom he was an adviser at the time when the current head of SIE was in charge of the Special SIE Control Commission in the Romanian Parliament.

Two of the plagiarized text sequences from Ionescu’s course exceed 23 and 30 consecutive pages, respectively. In the Introduction of the volume, the director of the SIE states that “the present work brings together course notes used by the author in working with students in the discipline «Geopolitics and international relations», which enjoys increasing attention in academic circles and in document searches “.

In a discussion with PressOne, the director of SIE explained that, during the time he was a deputy, he was invited to give a course at the “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, whose name he was not very sure of, however.

The head of the SIE also said that he was invited to various universities for discussions with students and presentations, which he kept and later used for course material. The volume “Elements of geopolitics and international relations” has on the inside cover, in front of the name Gabriel Vlase, the abbreviated title of doctor, “dr.”, an academic title acquired in 2010 at the SRI Academy, through a massive academic fraud, writes Emilia Sercan.