King Victor Emanuel III, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini watch fascist troops march through central Rome in 1941. Image via Reuters

ZURICH, June 25 (Reuters) – An honorary doctorate awarded by a Swiss university to former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini will not be revoked despite it being a “serious mistake”, a commission responsible for examining it has said. ‘affair.

The University of Lausanne (UNIL) honored the fascist leader in 1937 for “having conceived and realized in his homeland a social organization… which will leave a profound mark on history”.

The university has been repeatedly asked to strip the controversial honor from a recipient who was an ally of Adolf Hitler during World War II.

A panel of experts responsible for reviewing the case concluded that the decision to award the doctorate “constituted a serious error on the part of the academic and political authorities” of the time.

“This title constitutes a legitimization of a criminal regime and its ideology,” they said in a report released on Friday.

The panel did not recommend removing the title, saying it would give the false impression that the original decision to award the doctorate could be “corrected today”.

The university said withdrawing the award could lead critics to believe it wanted to erase the past.

“Rather than denying or erasing this episode, which is part of its history, UNIL management wants it to serve as a permanent warning,” she said in a statement on Friday.

Mussolini, who lived in Switzerland from 1902 to 1904, was executed by partisans in April 1945.

Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Mike Harrison

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