El Salvador Opens Mass Trial for 486 Alleged MS-13 Members
In a sweeping test of El Salvador’s hardline anti-gang campaign, a Salvadoran court has opened a collective trial for 486 alleged gang members, marking one of the largest mass proceedings yet under President Nayib Bukele’s controversial use of...
In a sweeping test of El Salvador’s hardline anti-gang campaign, a Salvadoran court has opened a collective trial for 486 alleged gang members, marking one of the largest mass proceedings yet under President Nayib Bukele’s controversial use of emergency powers.
According to prosecutors, the case against the alleged Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, members covers more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, including a weekend of bloodshed that became El Salvador’s deadliest since the end of its civil war.
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Those accusations range from homicide and femicide to extortion and arms trafficking.
Since the state of emergency took effect in 2022 and was repeatedly extended, security forces have detained more than 91,500 people, while congress approved a decree authorizing mass trials.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights renewed its warnings over rights abuses tied to the prolonged emergency measures and urged authorities to stop relying on them as a long-term crime-fighting policy.
Prosecutors say the charges cover 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 current case are being held in five prisons, including CECOT, the high-security prison opened by the Bukele administration in 2023 that has become a defining symbol of El Salvador’s zero-tolerance offensive against gangs.
As part of its case, the Salvadoran prosecutor’s office has submitted autopsy reports, ballistic analyses and witness testimony, and has 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 in prison.
Those on trial include alleged longtime gang leaders who took part in the 2012 to 2014 truce between the government and gangs during the presidency of Mauricio Funes.
Mr Bukele’s government says the emergency crackdown drove the homicide rate down last year to 1.3% per 100,000 people, from 7.8% in 2022.