Mexican president says authorities must examine alleged plagiarism by top judge

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday authorities should resolve a case of alleged plagiarism by a Supreme Court justice he nominated who is in the running to take the helm of the country's top tribunal.

Justice Yasmin Esquivel was this week accused by Mexican news outlet Latinus of plagiarizing her 1987 undergraduate thesis, presented at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), prompting calls for her to step down.

Esquivel called the media report "totally false," and on Twitter posted letters of support from academics who supervised her thesis and further studies.

When asked about the case during a regular news conference, Lopez Obrador said it was up to authorities to resolve the matter, and noted he could not be wholly objective on it.

He sidestepped questions about whether Esquivel should be removed from her post, saying: "It will be whatever the judiciary or the proper authority decides."

He then lashed out at those criticizing Esquivel, arguing that any "mistake" or "anomaly" made by her as a student was "infinitely smaller" than the damage they had done.

"All of those who are asking for the justice to be punished have committed worse crimes," he said.

The Supreme Court did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The wife of a business ally of Lopez Obrador, Esquivel joined the court in 2019, and is vying to take over from Chief Justice Arturo Zaldivar when his term concludes on Dec. 31.

The 11 justices of the court are due to elect Zaldivar's successor in January.

The Latinus story linked to archived copies from the UNAM website of a thesis attributed to her and another published a year earlier with a similar title. The two documents showed long passages that are nearly identical. Her thesis was shorter.

UNAM said in statement on Friday evening it had done a detailed comparison of two theses, published in 1986 and 1987, and had found a "high level of similarity" between them.

It did not name Esquivel, but said it would inform the body in charge of reviewing the case, while respecting due process and following established university procedure.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Bradley Perrett)