PRINCETON

A federal jury has convicted a former Princeton graduate student of "product tampering and communicating false information" for planting a cyanide-laced teabag in a local supermarket last February, The Daily Princtonian reported last month.

Several hours after placing the teabag, Dragoljob Cetkovic called the supermarket claiming that some cheese had been poisoned, citing the teabag as proof. The store tested 157 cheese samples, but found cyanide only in the teabag. The call was later traced to Cetkovic's apartment.

During his two-day trial, Cetkovic testified that his action was part of a suicide plot, not intended to harm others. He said he hoped to learn from newspaper reports whether the dosage of cyanide in the teabag was lethal, so that he could use the same amount to kill himself.

Cetkovic's academic status was terminated in 1979, and he had been banned from the university campus in 1983 for causing "difficulties," The Daily reported.

Cetkovic, who could receive up to 15 years in prison, will be sentenced in November. Controversy Surrounds Report That School Allegedly Censored

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Allegations that the dean of Boston University's College of Communications censored a report about an Afghani resistance news organization have renewed debate in a long-running controversy over academic and journalistic ethics, university faculty members said this week.

In January of 1986, Boston University received federal funds to send BU personnel to Pakistan to train about 30 Afghani reporters, photographers, and video camera men for the Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC). The organization aims to provide information usually censored by Afghanistan's state-run press to the Western news agencies.

The controversy after several B.U. faculty members questioned whether the university presence in Pakistan would promote pro-rebel propaganda instead of fair journalism and consequently damage the university's image in the academic world.

As a result, Dean emeritus and Professor of Journalism Bernard Redmont stepped down as dean of the university's College of Communications in the summer of 1986 because he "felt the Afghan media project...raised an issue of journalistic and academic ethics."

Redmont said he resigned because poor communications, disputing political factions, inadequate security and the influence of foreign agents in Pakistan made the university's presence in Pakistan appear suspect to outsiders, whatever its actual motives. "There is the danger that the college could be involved in propaganda and the risk to our reputation that there could be that perception," Redmont said.

The latest flare-up arose after the campus independent newspaper The Daily Free Press alleged that the current dean of the College of Communications H. Joachim Maitre had been censoring by deleting unconfirmed reports of rebel atrocities against Soviet soldiers from a brochure promoting the AMRC.

Maitre could not be reached for comment yesterday.

But the Associate Dean of the College of Communications Donald S. Goldman did not agree that Maitre had acted inappropriately. He said that the report was intended as a public relations piece, not a news story.