Packwood plea for privacy

Senator Robert Packwood of Oregon pleaded his right to privacy and said he had been unjustifiably branded a criminal as he resisted requests to hand over his personal diaries to the Senate ethics committee investigating charges of sexual harassment against him by 26 women, AFP reports from Washington.

Senator Packwood was speaking in a debate ahead of a vote on whether to allow the ethics committee to go to court to force him to hand over the diaries, in a scandal which began almost a year ago with allegations of sexual harassment and of using his staff to intimidate women into withdrawing their accusations.