El Salvador holds mass trial for 486 MS-13 gang members
El Salvador has opened one of the largest mass prosecutions of President Nayib Bukele’s anti-gang campaign, putting 486 alleged gang members on collective trial as his government continues to wield contentious emergency powers in its fight against violence.
El Salvador has opened one of the largest mass prosecutions of President Nayib Bukele’s anti-gang campaign, putting 486 alleged gang members on collective trial as his government continues to wield contentious emergency powers in its fight against violence.
According to prosecutors, the case against the alleged Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, members covers more than 47,000 crimes carried out between 2012 and 2022, including a weekend that became the country’s deadliest since the end of its civil war.
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Those allegations include homicide, femicide, extortion and arms trafficking.
Since the state of emergency was introduced in 2022 and repeatedly extended, security forces have arrested more than 91,500 people, while congress approved a decree authorizing mass trials.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights again raised alarm over alleged rights abuses tied to the prolonged emergency measures and urged authorities to stop relying on them as a crime-control strategy.
Prosecutors say the case covers more than 47,000 crimes allegedly committed between 2012 and 2022
“This regime suspends the rights to a legal defence and to the inviolability of communications, and also extends administrative detention timelines,” the commission said in a statement.
The defendants in the case are being held in five prisons, among them CECOT, the notorious maximum-security facility opened by the Bukele administration in 2023 that has become a symbol of El Salvador’s zero-tolerance offensive against gangs.
Prosecutors have submitted autopsies, ballistic reports and witness testimony as evidence, and have asked the judge to hand down the maximum prison term for each offence.
If convicted on multiple counts, a single defendant could face as much as 245 years behind bars.
Those on trial include alleged veteran gang leaders who took part in the 2012 to 2014 truce between the government and gangs during the presidency of Mauricio Funes.
Bukele’s government says the emergency-powered crackdown helped drive the homicide rate down last year to 1.3% per 100,000 people, from 7.8% in 2022.