Top-ups on Postepay, designer clothes, video games, all gifts that arrived after the sexual abuse. A priest originally from Cagliari but transplanted to Liguria for years, Father Andrea Melis , was arrested by the Genoa police on charges of sexual assault on a minor .
The main victim, according to the investigations coordinated by prosecutor Federico Panichi, as anticipated by Secolo XIX, was a 12-year-old boy who was an altar boy at the time of the events. The abuse continued for three years: the parents had noticed a strange attachment to the priest and had forbidden the boy to see him. However, the two continued to keep in contact until the minor's family reported it.
Melis is also accused of trying to kiss two young people in exchange for an electronic cigarette.
Sixty years old, belonging to the Order of Piarist Fathers, he was director of the elementary school and of the Assarotti Foundation in the Ligurian capital, uphill San Bartolomeo degli Armeni; he was president of Fidae Liguria (Federation of primary and secondary Catholic schools) as well as parish priest of the church of Sant'Antonio da Padova in Finale Ligure in the province of Savona.
The precautionary measure was triggered only for the first crime, the repeated abuse against the twelve-year-old. On the other two charges against the cleric, child prostitution and attempted aggravated violence, the investigating judge postponed the evaluation until further investigative developments. Melis is defended by lawyers Raffaele Caruso and Graziella Delfino. In the meantime, the prelate's house was seized, inside were found drugs for sexual stimulation but also designer clothing and a supply of electronic cigarettes.
The Curia suspended him: «With regard to what was reported in the mass media regarding the arrest of Father Andrea Melis, of the Scolopi Fathers, accused of child abuse, we express our sorrow for the facts reported and our closeness to those who were affected victim and their families - comments Monsignor Silvio Grilli, coordinator of the Social Communications Office of the Archdiocese of Genoa - When news of the facts subsequently reported became known, the Archdiocese of Genoa, the Diocese of Savona and the Religious Order promptly initiated the canonical procedure foreseen in these cases, informing the competent Vatican Dicastery . The measures provided for by canon law have been taken against the religious for some time and we have collaborated with the police."
(Unioneonline/D)