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Hungarian President Pal Schmitt resigned his post on Monday amidst a two-month-scandal that peaked when his doctoral thesis was revoked last week for plagiary, Xinhua reported.
Schmitt's doctoral thesis, submitted in 1992, was found to have largely been a verbatim translation of a thesis written by Bulgarian researcher Nikolai Georgiev in 1987. Other portions were taken from a study by German researcher Klaus Heineman.
Schmitt continued to protest his innocence, alleging that regulations when he wrote the thesis were not as stringent as PhD rules are today. He vowed to fight the university's decision in court, but agreed to resign in the interests of Hungarian unity.