This same official, Jorge Carlos Elena, subsequently was permitted by IDB President Enrique Iglesias to head the bank's operations in Buenos Aires even after exceeding the IDB's mandatory retirement age, according to confidential sources and critics who are pushing for reforms at the international financial institution.

The judgment by the IDB tribunal in favor of Olvido Goyzueta Ballock is considered not only unusual but also severe, according to IDB officials who asked not to be named. The judgment resulted in the complainant receiving a financial settlement from the bank, although it fell short of the $5 million she demanded for harm that included serious health problems.

The ruling last year (Ballock v. IDB) found that Ballock was improperly fired from her job as an administrative secretary and that she suffered an unfair and abusive dismissal allegedly by Elena, who took it upon himself "to personally make the most violent comments and negative remarks against the complainant in public." Elena also used other staff members to carry out the campaign against her on his behalf, she charged.

Matters came to a head, Goyzueta Ballock and other witnesses said, at a supposed mission "team-building exercise" held in the resort city of Pirenopolis. Although trained team builders were present at the two-and-a-half-day retreat, "Elena actually took over the running of the exercise himself. He stood up and led the complainant to a chair placed in the middle of a circle formed by 32 people seated around her. It must be kept in mind that the complainant was the only employee subjected to this exercise, which, in principle, should have applied equally to all staff members."

This "true inquisition tribunal," she complained to the administrative judges, allowed one senior staff member to "cast moral aspersions on the complainant, on a personal level, in a rude and vulgar way, yelling into the microphone." Elena, she said, "shouted" at her, "having abandoned any restraint." At one point, she claimed, the IDB official shouted into the microphone, "Let us lance the wound to let the pus come out!" Elena told the tribunal this was "untrue."

This scene disturbed even a superior designated by headquarters to take part in the event. She asked for the floor to make an impassioned plea: "Stop this, please. Show a little human charity!"

The little drama lasted for four-and-a-half hours. "On various occasions [Goyzueta Ballock] became physically ill as a result of the emotional pressure she was often subjected to in her deteriorated job environment," the administrative tribunal heard. "This led to her being hospitalized several times, including in the intensive-care unit reserved for serious cases of life-threatening conditions or risk to major organic functions."

Goyzueta Ballock later was dismissed and was told she had 48 hours to remove her belongings from the IDB's premises.

The IDB later admitted no wrongdoing in the case and tried to keep it from being decided at the tribunal by brandishing a narrow interpretation about how many days were allowed for complaints to be brought. (The bank's position excluded local holidays.)

The administrative tribunal did not accept Goyzueta Ballock's request for a $5 million settlement, including damages, giving her instead the equivalent of three years' pay. Nor did it subject Elena, like Iglesias a Uruguayan, to any sanctions, according to sources at the IDB.

In a dissenting but supportive opinion, Judge Jorge Dario Cristaldo Montaner observed: "The Pirenopolis retreat was the climax of an ongoing process of harassment by the IDB representative (Elena) that may be regarded as denigrating, arbitrary and discriminatory and was designed to bring about the termination of the complainant's employment."

Elena and IDB officials have declined repeated Insight requests for comment on this story.

Martin Edwin Andersen is a reporter for Insight.