A university ethics committee made a tentative judgment on allegations that Moon Dae-sung, former Olympic athlete and once ruling party lawmaker, plagiarized his 2007 doctoral dissertation.

A report said the Kookmin University panel found him guilty of research fraud after its nine-month investigation.

But its head denied the report, saying it has yet to finalize the decision.

“At this point, we can’t tell anything. We have not yet reached final conclusions,” Lee Chae-sung, head of the school’s ethics committee, told The Korea Herald.

Lee, however, admitted that the five-member committee reached a “tentative conclusion,” and also officially sent him a notice for appeal. But he declined to reveal the details about the committee’s decision.

“The school’s research ethics committee has given him one month’s notice to make a final appeal, if there is no objection we’ll announce the final conclusion soon,” Lee added.

A plagiarism complaint was formally filed against Moon during the National Assembly election in April. After a preliminary investigation the research ethics committee announced that Moon’s doctoral thesis submitted in August 2007 overlapped with a doctoral thesis submitted to Myongji University in February.

Following the announcement, the 35-year-old lawmaker from Busan left the ruling Saenuri Party, and also resigned as a professor from Dong-A University.

Moon’s plagiarism case also drew international attention as he currently serves as a member of the International Olympic Committee’s athlete’s commission.

The 2004 Olympic taekwondo gold medalist is the first Asian athlete to have become a member of the IOC. He won his eight-year term in 2008.

An official from the IOC said earlier that the IOC Ethics Commission will only discuss Moon’s memberships, once there is a “definitive decision” by the university.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)