Manila’s ex-envoy to Kuwait accused of rape

Sexual-harassment charges have been filed against Philipppines Ambassador Shulan Primavera who was recalled from his post in Kuwait last November over allegations of molesting his household help several times in 2012.
 
“He was already charged and a formal hearing will be conducted,” Assistant Secretary Raul Hernandez, spokesman of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), said on Wednesday in a press conference in Manila.
 
He did not provide further details, but media reports quoted unnamed sources as saying that the DFA’s Committee on Decorum and Investigation earlier this month recommended the filing of formal charges against Primavera.
 
The committee had allegedly “found probable cause based on testimonies and evidence gathered” during the fact-finding probe conducted by its members.
 
Known only by her pseudonym Mabel, the household help has said that Primavera abused her sexually in three separate incidents between February and April 2012 while she was working at his official residence in Kuwait City.
 
She also claimed that the ambassador had hired her without a contract because she was a runaway maid living in a shelter, and that he paid her wages of less than half the minimum rate approved by the Philippine and Kuwaiti governments.
 
Primavera, who has denied the charges, was posted to head the Philippine mission in Kuwait City in 2010. He has been staying in Manila since his recall in 2012.
 

 

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