BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Defying an order to disband, an academic panel ruled Friday that Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta plagiarized large sections of his doctoral thesis and called for him to be stripped of his Ph.D. The announcement adds to the political tensions in this Eastern European nation, where the president and prime minister are jockeying for power.

The 39-year-old Ponta had earlier said he would resign if found guilty of plagiarism following a recent article in Nature that alleged that he lifted passages of his thesis. He declined to comment on the ruling.