Ruud Lubbers groping redux

From the Washington Post:

A United Nations employee whose sexual harassment claims led former refugee chief Ruud Lubbers to resign now alleges that she was the target of retaliation, and plans to sue him and Secretary-General Kofi Annan, she said Wednesday.

[...]

Brzak alleges that in the year and a half since she filed her claims against Lubbers - claims backed by U.N. internal investigators - she has been denied performance evaluations, given an unfair workload and humiliated when Lubbers purportedly disclosed confidential information from her medical file about her and her family.

[...]

Brzak filed a complaint in April, 2004 claiming that at the end of a staff meeting four months before, Lubbers had put his arms around her waist, pulled her back toward him and pressed his groin against her. An investigation by the internal U.N. watchdog backed Brzak's claims and found a pattern of sexual harassment by Lubbers.

Yet Annan rejected the report's conclusions because he said the allegations couldn't be substantiated and refused to fire Lubbers. Lubbers later resigned because of the attention the scandal received.

Ruud Lubbers himself "could not immediately be reached for comment", but still, open and shut, wouldn't you say?

Well, here's some stuff the Washington Post might have added to the story even without asking Lubbers to deny the charges for the umpteenth time:

• At the time, the internal UN watchdog was headed by Mr. Dileep Nair, the same guy who was replaced by Volcker as head investigator of the Oil-for-Food Scandal because that was going nowhere.
• This Dileep Nair was so unpopular that UN staff threatened Annan with a vote of no confidence if he would not get rid of Nair. Lubbers, on the other hand, received a standing ovation when he left (with, I kid you not, more than a few tears by his subordinates).
  
• There were two witnesses at the meeting when the harassment allegedly took place. The watchdog's report simply dismisses the testimony of the first witness who could not remember anything untoward happening.
• The second witness saw Lubbers put his arm around Cynthia Brzak's waist twice in an "inappropriately familiar" manner. No pressing of the groin, no humping. The report dismissed this testimony, too. Except for the two words "inapproprately familiar". These witness' words are used to back Cynthia Brzak's version of what happened.
  
• To establish a pattern of sexual harassment, the report gets four other women to tell of incidences where they were allegedly harassed by Mr. Lubbers. They are allowed to do so anonymously. However, all four refuse to present signed testimony.
  

There's more, of course (such as Lubbers not being allowed to know the precise charges against him when he was questioned by the internal watchdog types, and such as Mr. Nair's own troubles with sexual harassment charges as well as accusations of graft) but that's all old news.

That's why you'd expect a newspaper to know about it.