Nadeem Riaz, a Pakistan’s Foreign Service officer, was dismissed from service over charges of harassing a woman official during his tenure as the head of mission in Italy in 2018. The decision came from the Federal Ombudsman for Protection against Harassment after a complaint was lodged there. 

The woman officer, who was posted at the embassy as a trade officer, leveled a number of allegations, including sexual harassment, and making her working conditions tougher, against the ambassador, and later returned to Pakistan to lodge a complaint. 

Announcing the decision on her four-year-old complaint, the Ombudsman ordered the dismissal of the former ambassador. Significantly, considering the gravity of the case, he was also imposed a penalty of PKR 50 Lakh ($26,000).

In her complaint, the female officer alleged that when Riaz was posted to the embassy he made her travel along with him to the cities unrelated to her job, forced her to rent an apartment near his residence, and got the electricity connection of the apartment disconnected.

The penalized diplomat retired from the service last year and is now the president of the Institute of Regional Studies, a think tank of the Pakistan Foreign Ministry.

“After threadbare security and analysis of the case and after completing the due process of law, accused Nadeem Riaz, head of mission embassy of Pakistan Rome Italy was proceeded against and imposed upon major penalty of dismissal from service under section 4(4) of the Act 2010,” the Ombudsman stated in his decision, according to a report in The Express Tribune.

(SAM)