NEW YORK – A UN employee has accused a top organisation official of sexualassault and claimed that the world body failed to take her complaintseriously, the media reported.

In an exclusive interview with CNN on Friday, Martina Brostrom accused LuizLoures, a UN Assistant Secretary General, of grabbing her in a hotelelevator, forcibly kissing her and trying to drag her to his room during aconference in 2015.

“I was pleading with him, and I was just bracing with all that I could justto not leave the elevator,” Brostrom, a policy advisor at UNAIDS, theorganisation’s global AIDS programme, told CNN.

“What has happened to me, how the situation has been mishandled – itmustn’t happen to any other woman,” she added.

Loures had co-operated with a 14-month investigation, which concluded thatBrostrom’s claims were unsubstantiated.

But Brostrom has slammed the probe as “deeply flawed”.

Loures, who was also the deputy executive director of UNAIDS, is leavingthe UN at the end of his contract this week.

A spokesman for UNAIDS told CNN that the investigation into Brostrom’sallegations followed “due process” and she was welcome to appeal.

Brostrom is one of three women to describe similar encounters with Loures.

Malayah Harper, told CNN that Loures assaulted her in a strikingly similarway at a hotel in 2014.

A third unidentified woman also complained of an assault a few years ago. -Agencies