Indian police charge ex-UN climate chief with sexual harassment

Indian police said Tuesday they had charged the former head of the UN climate change panel Rajendra Pachauri with sexual harassment, following a complaint by a former colleague at an environmental think-tank.

Police brought the charges against Pachauri in a Delhi trial court, more than a year after a female employee in her late twenties filed a complaint accusing him of sending inappropriate texts and emails.

"We have filed the charge sheet today and the court will decide when to begin the hearing," investigating officer Virender Dalal told AFP.

Police have charged Pachauri with four counts including sexual assault, harassment and criminal intimidation, according to the complainant's lawyer.

"Police have filed the nearly 1,400 page charge sheet in the trial court," lawyer Prashant Mendiratta told AFP.

"We will need time to examine the entire document but it states that they have found prima facie evidence," he added.

Pachauri, who is on bail, has denied the sexual harassment charges and said his emails and mobile phone were hacked.

Pachauri, 75, a leading voice on the dangers of global warming, was forced to quit as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2015 after his colleague at the think-tank filed her complaint.

Last year the employee, who cannot be named for legal reasons, resigned from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) based in New Delhi.
Source: AFP