MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile: Interior Undersecretary Monsalve resigns amid rape allegations

Monsalve pledged to prove his innocence

Manuel Monsalve turned in his resignation Thursday as Chile's Interior Undersecretary amid rape allegations. “I have been informed during the course of this week that there is an accusation against me, of which I do not know the details,” Monsalve said. “I have not committed any conduct constituting a crime,” he added while insisting that the reason for his departure was not to have any privilege during the investigation. Monsalve's alleged victim is a woman of legal age who works as an official at the Interior Undersecretariat.

“I have to guarantee, and this is the basis for this decision, the normal functioning of the Government,” Monsalve also pointed out. “I have presented my resignation to the President of the Republic” because “in the exercise of my position as Undersecretary of the Interior, I have a direct and daily relationship with the Public Prosecutor's Office, with the Investigations Police and with Carabineros,” he also explained.

“In the framework of this investigation, I have to guarantee the autonomy of the institutions to carry it out and I believe that this is incompatible with the exercise of my position” after the case against him filed by Metropolitan North Central Regional Prosecutor Xavier Armendariz on Oct. 14.

“I will prove my innocence” although “I still do not know the details” the departing official also pledged. “I have the absolute conviction that I have not incurred in any conduct constituting a crime,” which “requires that I dedicate myself to this task because of the personal and family effect that a denunciation of this nature has.”

“This is an investigation that is ongoing, with proceedings already completed and others in progress,” Armendáriz told reporters. “The first thing I would like to make clear is that, for this prosecutor, the institutional position of a person has never been an issue that has to do with the result or the development of the investigation.” he also stressed.

Monsalve, 59, is a physician with a long background in Chile's Socialist Party (PS). Before joining President Gabriel Boric Foont's administration in March 2022, he served as a Congressman for four consecutive terms between 2006 and 2022.

The PS issued a statement hoping that “the action of the Public Prosecutor's Office is carried out with the utmost rigor and objectivity in accordance with the law” given that “in Chile there is not and cannot be any procedural privilege.”