Charged with the crime of revealing a secret, the deputy of National Renovation (RN) and representative of the Region of La Araucanía, Miguel Mellado Suazo, will be formalized, who in June of last year admitted to having been the one who secretly recorded the audio of a meeting to which the press did not have access and in which President Gabriel Boric discussed the situation in the south of the country with parliamentarians.
At the request of the Valparaíso Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the formalization hearing of Deputy Mellado will take place on May 7 at 8:50 a.m., in the premises of the Viña del Mar Guarantee Court.
Deputy Mellado faces a citizen complaint arising from the clandestine recording he made in the Presidential Palace of Cerro Castillo (Viña del Mar), where President Boric met with deputies from the so-called Southern Macrozone shortly before traveling to La Araucanía. On that occasion, Deputy Mellado blamed him, ensuring that he was not present when the ban on recording was discussed, which is why he shared the recording “in good faith” with the press.
The lawyer sponsoring the complaint, Manuel Soto, explained that the judicial action is limited by the parliamentary jurisdiction of Miguel Mellado. Therefore, the Prosecutor’s Office will communicate the facts to the court without requesting precautionary measures, but with well-founded suspicions about the commission of the crime, since the deputy confessed to having made the recording and leak.
Finally, it will be the court who decides whether it is a punishable act. If confirmed, Deputy Mellado could be removed from office and face the consequences.
Mellado was already sanctioned by the Ethics Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, following the leak of the Cerro Castillo audio. The parliamentary body agreed to a fine of 15% of his parliamentary diet (just over one million 400 thousand pesos of his gross income), in addition to a motion of censure.
Juan Carlos Manríquez, lawyer for Congressman Mellado, maintained that the parliamentarian “has not committed any criminal offense” and that he also apologized to the President of the Republic for having recorded and disseminated the conversation in Viña del Mar.
It is worth mentioning that, hours before his confession, Miguel Mellado had released another statement in the press, on video, in which he described the leak of the presidential audio as “regrettable.”
The 32 parliamentarians from the Araucanía and BioBío region were invited, but only 18 attended. In addition to them and the President, there was the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, the undersecretary of the same portfolio, Manuel Monsalve, the Minister of the General Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Elizalde, and his undersecretary Macarena Lobos.
President Boric referred to the leak and described it as a “tremendously irresponsible attitude” by the deputy. However, he mentioned that he will not sue personally, nor will he “persecute the cause.” However, he indicated that as a Government they made the corresponding complaint to the Judiciary.
The day after the leak, the Ministry of the Interior made a complaint to the Public Ministry so that what happened could be investigated. Action that was added to that of deputy Mauricio Ojeda (independent of the Republican bench). “For me there is a crime that can even carry sentences of up to 5 years in prison,” he said at the time.
From the RN bench, although they initially repudiated the leak, they later classified it as a “mistake”, valuing the recognition by Deputy Mellado, who mentioned that he will not resign from his position as a result of this fact, although he will assume administrative responsibilities. and legal issues that must be faced.