Chile, intelligence chief Cristina Vilches removed

(ANSA) – SANTIAGO, CHILE, OCTOBER 25 – The director general of the Chilean Investigative Police Eduardo Cerna has removed the head of Intelligence, Cristina Vilches, from her position due to her actions in the case of the former undersecretary of Security, Manuel Monsalve , who resigned after a rape complaint from María Elena Santibáñez, one of his subordinates. At the request of the then Undersecretary of Security, Vilches had reviewed the cameras of the Hotel Panamericano, where on 22 September the sexual assault against the woman who then reported Monsalve on 14 October took place. According to sources cited by the newspaper La Tercera, on October 7, Monsalve began to worry and contacted Vilches. Yesterday, the chief prosecutor Xavier Armendáriz specified that Monsalve “without any complaint or official communication to the higher authorities ordered a series of secret interventions on the cameras (of the Panamericano Hotel) and on” María Elena Santibáñez. “The first investigator who spoke to her did so in this procedure ordered, requested and suggested by the defendant,” Armendáriz added. Last Thursday, in an interview with Channel 13, the victim’s lawyer, María Elena Santibáñez, stated that secret service personnel arrived at the complainant’s home, posing as deliverymen, and that they tried to force her out into the street to talk to her”, which his client did not do. (ANSA).