Andrea Melis, a priest who ended up under house arrest in Genoa on charges of sexual violence against minors, is positive for HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS. This was announced by the preliminary investigations judge Milena Catalano, underlining the “social danger” of the priest, who allegedly had unprotected sex with his victim despite knowing he was HIV-positive.
According to the Genoese newspaper The 19th CenturyDon Melis himself admitted to being HIV positive during the house search of his room inside the ecclesiastical structure on Via San Bartolomeo degli Armeni. The priest reported having contracted HIV more than ten years ago in Africa.
Investigators have ordered medical tests on the 16-year-old boy who for more than three years has suffered unprotected sexual abuse from the priest. The boy has so far tested negative for prophylaxis, but this condition could change at any moment. If he were to test positive for HIV, Father Melis would also risk being charged with very serious intentional injuries.
The priest is currently facing charges of sexual abuse of minors, child prostitution and attempted sexual assault. Today, Wednesday 7 August, the interrogation to validate his house arrest is scheduled, but Melis’ lawyers, Raffaele Caruso and Graziella Delfino, have announced in advance that their client will not answer the GIP’s questions, availing himself of the right to remain silent.
The alleged sexual abuse dates back to four years ago, when the victim – 12 years old at the time – attended as an altar boy the church of Sant’Antonio da Padova in Finale Ligure in the province of Savona, where Don Melis was the parish priest. The priest allegedly gave the young man expensive gifts – in some cases even 200 euros in cash or designer tracksuits – in exchange for sexual relations.
The boy’s family, sensing something suspicious, allegedly ordered the child to stop attending, but the meetings continued clandestinely for years in the apartment made available to the priest by the school where he was director and teacher, the Assarotti elementary school in Genoa.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, over the years the priest had also approached two other young men, who, however, rejected his advances.
“In underlining the dramatic nature of the case and the full awareness of all the aspects that characterize it – the lawyers write in a note – we believe it is necessary to offer some clarifications. The first clarification: Father Melis lives with an HIV infection but his situation has been treated for 12 years at the San Martino hospital and for over 10 years the therapy he is following has given positive results, since the checks he periodically carries out confirm the non-detectable nature of the virus which is therefore totally under control and, precisely, irrelevant. When the virus is not detectable it is not even transmissible”.
“The second fact – the priest’s lawyers continue – is that of the ultra-sensitivity of this information: the veil of privacy should be completely spread over this data to prevent a fact of instinctive fear, which is often due to the insufficiency of scientific information, from causing a stigma on people. Our thoughts once again go to the offended person who also has to shoulder the spread of information of this type which adds the risk of a further burden to the pain that the matter brings with it”.
“Father Melis – the lawyers emphasize – had not communicated this news to anyone, neither to his order, nor to his family. No one knew this fact, but this silence has its own legitimacy that also arises from the conquests of science. Despite the silence kept with respect to the facts, Father Melis instead communicated this information to the investigators (also acquired through a series of medical documents), so that it could be managed in the best interest of the injured party. We are faced with a dramatic event in which there was no need for this narrative element: the elements of gravity are already very heavy and perhaps this diffusion could have been spared the suspect and even more so the injured party”.
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