Chile’s President Gabriel Boric has endured a politically damaging week. The man who was considered his security czar, the deputy interior minister, Manuel Monsalve, was arrested by the investigative police (PDI) on 14 November and placed under preventive detention five days later on charges of sexual assault and rape of a junior colleague. “In Chile nobody is above the law,” Boric said in response. Monsalve stepped down on 17 October, but Boric has come under heavy fire for failing to adequately account for a 48-hour delay in forcing his resignation.
Monsalve was arrested by the PDI in his home in Viña del Mar, in Valparaíso region. He was formally charged with sexual assault and rape, crimes which could carry a prison sentence of 15 years, by a colleague with whom he had gone for a meal at a restaurant in central Santiago and brought back to his hotel on 22 September [
WR-24-42].
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