An investigation into the alleged corruption of several members of the Nobel prize science committee will be laid down, a Swedish prosecutor announced Friday. The inquiry was launched at the end of last year after members of the medicine, physics and chemistry committees visited China on a trip paid for by Chinese authorities.
'The preliminary investigation concerning the three members of the Nobel committees suspected of corruption... is going to be closed,' Nils-Eric Schultz, the prosecutor heading the probe, said in a statement.
'The possibility of a single member of the Committee being able to influence the final choice of a laureate in a decisive way is practically nil,' he added.
Schultz, a special corruption prosecutor, had announced the investigation last December, after committee members visited China.
Schultz stressed that invitation had not been to any individual committee members but to Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), to which three of the professors concerned had links.
The Chinese authorities who had issued the invitation could not therefore have intended to corrupt or influence members of the Nobel Committee, Schultz concluded.
No Chinese citizen has won a Nobel Prize for the past three years."
Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
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The three scientists who were subjected to this investigation participated in a conference trip of the kind that is common in scientific exchange throughout the world. As we all know, it is common that invited speakers are paid by the conference hosts. It was a great surprise to all scientists in Sweden when chief prosecutor Christer van der Kwast decided to launch an investigation. Mr van der Kwast is a controversial prosecutor with an eye for publicity and the link to the Nobel Prize, although weak, probably triggered his appetite. The prosecutor assigned to the case, Nils-Erik Schultz, went through it carefully and found, as expected, no evidence for any wrongdoing.
Goran K Hansson
Karolinska Institutet
Stockholm, Sweden
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