Dr Azizan Osman claims he was ‘targeted and misled’ by several individuals not related to the university, into believing that he is to receive a doctorate from UM. ― Picture taken from Facebook/Azizan Osman

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 — University of Hertfordshire has no record of a doctorate claimed by motivational speaker Azizan Osman who is currently embroiled in a controversy over the authenticity of his academic qualifications.

The university is the latest to state that it did not award the doctorate claimed by Azizan, after Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Infrastruktur Kuala Lumpur (UKL) did so publicly last week.

Universiti Malaya (UM) was the first to come forward and refute claims that it had awarded an honorary doctorate to Azizan.

“With reference to your request for verification of award for the above, I can confirm that after a thorough search of our records we are not able to find any award or details for this person,” Anne Austin, an assistant registrar at the British university, wrote in a letter.

“I can confirm that this award was not issued by the University of Hertfordshire and we believe this information to be fraudulent,” she concluded in the letter with “Azizan Osman” in its subject.

The authenticity of the letter was also confirmed by the university via its Twitter page.

With Hertfordshire’s denial, Azizan is left with just a “Doctor of Science (Metaphysics)” from a “Gordon University” in Florida, United States.

Yesterday, the motivational speaker claimed he was “targeted and misled” by several individuals not related to the university, into believing that he is to receive a doctorate from UM.

His firm also insisted that Azizan “never claimed to have” doctorates from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Infrastruktur Kuala Lumpur (UKL) despite both the doctorates having been listed on his website.

Instead, it asserted that the inclusion of the doctorates in the list of Azizan’s qualifications was due to “shortcomings in the operation procedures.”

His website previously listed him as having a PhD in psychology from UKM and a PhD in business administration from UKL.

In the statement yesterday, the firm continued to claim that Azizan, who applies the “Dr” prefix to himself, possessed doctorates from Hertfordshire and “Gordon University”.