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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andriy Slyusarchuk | 6/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Slyusarchuk | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:31:06.020817+00:00 | kb-cron |
On 6 October 2011 the Lviv newspaper Ekspres published its first article critical of Slyusarchuk, "The Sensational Exposure of Pseudo-Professor Pi", accusing him of forgery and fraud and investigating him in subsequent articles. Three weeks later, the newspaper published a letter from the Russian National Research Medical University saying that Slyusarchuk had not studied at the university. On 10 January 2012 the newspaper released a video of brain surgery performed by Slyusarchuk, surrounded by assistants in an operating room; in the video, he wiped his scalpel with cotton wool before incising the patient's brain. On 14 March Ekspres published an interview with Andriy Novosad, who told reporters that he wrote a computer program which Slyusarchuk tested with radio equipment for the pi demonstrations and created articles which were published in Slyusarchuk's name. After the Ekspres articles attracted widespread publicity Slyusarchuk denied the accusations in interviews for other media sources, saying that he had applied to the General Prosecutor of Ukraine to clarify the situation and disprove the Ekspres allegations. On 14 November 2011, the Ukrainian police detained him on suspicion of forgery and fraud. During the investigation, senior officials of the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sport of Ukraine (including department heads and the vice-minister) had told the press that Slyusarchuk's documents and scientific titles were valid according to Ukrainian law and protocol. Large portions of Slyusarchuk's scientific works were considered classified, with state secrets privilege in Ukraine and Russia. At Slyusarchuk's trial people who admired him and invited him to work for them testified that although they were aware that he was not a doctor, they did not report him; he continued to practice neurosurgery in hospitals. From 2 February to 1 March 2012, Slyusarchuk underwent a psychiatric examination at Lviv Oblast Psychiatric Hospital. The examination found Slyusarchuk partially sane from a legal standpoint; he had a "mixed personality disorder with a predominance of dissocial, hysterical and narcissistic elements". According to Alexander Soroka, Slyusarchuk is mentally ill but responsible for his actions; if such a person is imprisoned, they would be supervised and treated by a psychiatrist as needed. The examination results were questioned by Ukrainian psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman: "If Doctor Pi begins to testify, a lot of compromising materials on the powerful of the world can appear. But in this way, it all can be attributed to his mental illness. I saw many performances of Slyusarchuk on television, listened to his speeches on radio and did not notice any signs of mental illness". According to Gluzman, none of his colleagues suspected that Slyusarchuk was mentally ill. He received a second psychiatric examination at Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital in Kyiv from 2 July to the fall of 2012. Ministry of Internal Affairs public-affairs department head Volodymyr Polishchuk said, "Independent examination [was] conducted to check Slyusarchuk's mental health and his possible psychic and hypnotic abilities". Slyusarchuk's first attorneys had based their strategy on a finding of mental incompetence, a strategy with which he disagreed. In his final testimony at the trial Slyusarchuk said, "The logic of such 'expert opinions' is simple: to diminish the defendant's attempts to adduce evidence in his defense, to force court and public not to believe a word said by him, he is declared out of his mind. The true value of such 'examinations' is known because since the USSR punitive psychiatry has been a trusted servant of the NKVD and the KGB." According to investigators, he did not graduate from a university; his background consisted of an institutional school, a sewing vocational school in Chervonohrad and treatment at the Zhytomyr psychiatric hospital. With his forged credentials, he worked as a neurosurgeon and held senior positions for long periods. According to a former agent of the USSR secret service who knew Slyusarchuk by sight, he was probably a product of a secret KGB pilot project. The agent was aware of a program in which orphans with unusual abilities were recruited throughout the Soviet Union; many died as a result of neurological experiments, but Slyusarchuk survived. He believes that Slyusarchuk participated in the secret pilot projects, receiving a professorship in return. His medical knowledge was derived from books and his memory was actually faulty; over time, he came to believe that he actually held the university diplomas. According to the agent, sealed documents about Slyusarchuk are stored in the KGB archives. Slyusarchuk maintained that his case was fabricated by the Prosecutor General and the Security Service of Ukraine. In 2005, he reportedly accidentally damaged his original diploma from the Russian National Research Medical University; a month later he received a duplicate, and denied any forgery. In 2003 Slyusarchuk reportedly met with Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents, agreeing in writing not to disclose the results of his scientific works and advising the Ukrainian government. In 2011, he traveled to Moscow and asked the former FSB curator for help. When Slyusarchuk was told that the FSB would confirm his education and academic degrees if he cooperated with them, he refused. Under questioning, the head of the university archives testified that Slyusarchuk showed her his damaged diploma in 2005 and his full name was legible. Verifying his surname in the registry, the woman submitted a request to the rector for approval. He did so, adding the instructions: "Carry out according to procedure"; the university neither proved nor disproved whether Slyusarchuk originally received a diploma from them. At a 16 December 2011 press conference, Minister of Education and Science Dmytro Tabachnyk said that his ministry's Russian counterpart admitted that it had mistakenly issued Slyusarchuk a duplicate diploma. At the press conference, Slyusarchuk's diplomas (including a duplicate) were demonstrated to be scanned documents.