Valery Fabrikant

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Valery Fabrikant (born 28 January 1940^[1] in Minsk, USSR), is a former associate professor of mechanical engineering at Concordia University. He was the gunman in the Concordia University massacre in which he killed four colleagues.

Born in the Soviet Union to a Jewish family, he immigrated to Canada in 1979 and began teaching at Concordia in 1980. Fabrikant blamed his colleagues for his being denied tenure on four successive occasions and for attempting to have his employment terminated. He also accused the university of tolerating the practice of academics being listed as co-authors on papers to which they have not contributed; in 1992 he went to court to try to have the names of several colleagues removed from research papers he had written in the 1980s. The case was to be heard in November of 2007, but the judge recused himself.^[2] On November 26, 2007, his case was dismissed by Quebec Superior Court Judge Nicole Morneau. Morneau used a provision of the Quebec Code of Civil Procedures to dismiss cases that are found to be frivolous or unfounded.^[3]

A contempt of court charge and threat of being killed in jail culminated in a shooting rampage on August 24, 1992 on the ninth floor of the Henry F. Hall Building at Concordia. Killed in the shooting spree were Departmental Chair Phoivos Ziogas and professors Matthew Douglass, Michael Hogben, and Jaan Saber. A departmental staff secretary, Elizabeth Horwood, was injured. Fabrikant believes that these killings were justified and that anyone else faced with a similar situation would have followed his actions. Fabrikant writes on his website: "I hope to be remembered as a person who had enough courage to fight lawlessness with deadly force and I hope to encourage others to do the same." ^[4]

Fabrikant represented himself at his trial. After several weeks of eccentric behaviour, the judge suspended the proceedings in order to conduct a hearing into Fabrikant's mental fitness to stand trial. He was eventually found fit and after three months of proceedings by two psychiatrists, the judge stopped his defense and he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Despite two psychiatrists ruling in his favor, Fabrikant thought he was insulted by these two psychologists, and, according to Dr. Louis Morisette, asked to meet with Morisette,^[5] working at Philippe-Pinel Institute specializing in legal psychiatry (prison for the mentally disturbed) where Fabrikant spent several days during the time of his trial. Morisette spent several hours over a few days with Fabrikant. "Fabrikant wanted my help to counter argue the two psychiatrists opinion on him in court, and to help him argue that psychology has no scientific basis and proves nothing.” Morisette does in fact disagree with the two psychologists, noting that co-workers' and students' satisfaction reports had always been fine until Fabrikant’s leave of absence for a heart attack. Problems reported by students coincide with his return in 1992. "Mr. Fabrikant suffers, in my opinion, from more than a simple personality disorder, [...] he could be treated by pharmaceutical products, a treatment he always refused.” “We often push the trial dates of people who suffer from complications because of heart attacks. In my opinion Fabrikant is not fit to stand trial.” ^[6]

Fabrikant is serving his sentence at Archambault Prison in Sainte-Anne-Des-Plaines. He continues his academic research from within prison.^[7] Recently he published a paper in IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics.^[8] The author's address was Prisoner #167932D, Archambault Jail, Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec, Canada J0N 1H0.

Fabrikant is a usenet user known for posting in newsgroups, particularly can.general and can.politics, claiming that he is the innocent victim of a conspiracy against him.

The Fabrikant incident resulted in a series of investigations and a formalization of research ethics guidelines by Canada's research funding agencies. An investigation on the conduct of the faculty in Fabrikant's department revealed that some of Fabrikant's claims were indeed true. The three researchers who were the primary target of Fabrikant's allegations have since then had their research accounts frozen by NSERC for misappropriating research funds and have been forced to take early retirement.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Fabrikant's website, containing his own accounts of events, trial transcripts and a collection of postings
• Dr. Fabrikant's Solution, extensive article by Morris Wolfe, based on earlier articles by Wolfe in Saturday Night and Lingua Franca
• The Fabrikant Affair, from Concordia University's online archives
• Fabrikant's publications, Google Scholar search for the publications of V.I. Fabrikant