Czech Defence Minister Lubomir Metnar said that he will not resign over his alledged thesis plagiarism, while defending his university diploma thesis at a press briefing in Prague on Friday afternoon.

The prime minister apologised for flaws in the thesis, but said it was not plagiarism.

The University of Ostrava, where Metnar graduated, concluded after an analysis that the thesis of Metnar is not plagiarism, according to its spokesman Adam Soustruznik earlier on Friday. The analysis showed Metnar only did not quote sources properly in his thesis.

Referring to the analysis, Metnar apologised to the public and also to the author of a book from which he cited in his thesis without marking the given parts as citations.

He said he made a mistake 14 years ago, and was sorry about it. Metnar said he also had his thesis checked by the Czech Police Academy, and that all the expert opinions, worked out by the Police Academy, the University of Ostrava, as well as the University of Economics' specialist Jan Mach, agreed that his thesis is not plagiarism.

He said he decided not to offer his resignation to Prime Minister Andrej Babis after assessing the situation and all available information.

Metnar graduated from the Faculty of Education at the University of Ostrava, north Moravia in 2004. According to the report of Czech Television (CT) on Tuesday, Metnar failed to properly quote all sources listed in his 2004 diploma thesis.

Two other ministers resigned over diploma thesis plagiarism since June 27 when Babis's coalition government was appointed by President Milos Zeman.