El Salvador judges almost 500 leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha amid international criticism

On Monday, El Salvador began an attack against 486 members of the Mara Salvatrucha, among them the members of the leadership known as ‘national ranfla’, whom the Government accuses, among other crimes, of ordering the massacre of 86 people committed during the last weekend of March 2022. That fact triggered the action by the Government of Nayib Bukele, a measure renewed 49 times.

According to the arguments presented by the Prosecutor’s Office, the accused are leaders of the criminal structure and responsible for ordering more than 47,000 crimes nationwide between 2012 and 2022. Among the charges attributed to them are homicides, femicides, extortion, drug trafficking, disappearances and arms trafficking.

The institution published a series of photographs in which hundreds of inmates are seen in facilities of the and other prisons in the country intended for gang members. In the images, the detainees appear sitting on plastic chairs and with shackles on their hands and feet, attending the hearing by teleconference while being guarded by armed men.

The images reveal for the first time the whereabouts and status of several of the national leaders of the criminal structure about whom nothing has been known for many years. One of them is Borromeo Enrique Henríquez Solórzano, alias ‘El Diablito de Hollywood’, the top leader of MS-13. Also seen is Rubén Antonio Rosa Lobo, alias ‘Chivo’ of Centrales, identified by the authorities as ‘the CEO’ of the gang, a member of the ‘Ranfla Nacional’ and requested for extradition by the United States. Another leader is César Humberto López Larios, alias ‘Greñas de Stoners’, a gang member who faced trial in a New York court, but who was returned to El Salvador as part of the negotiations between Bukele and Donald Trump. They all look emaciated.

“Among these criminals are those responsible for the wave of ordered violence in 2022. This event left 86 victims that marked a breaking point in the State’s response,” the Prosecutor’s Office published on its official X account. According to journalistic investigations, the massacre was a demonstration of force after the pact between the gangs and the Bukele Government was broken.

Repression policy

With the emergency regime, a policy of massive repression began that, like the right to defense and non-intervention of communications, modified secondary laws and the Constitution to increase penalties and punishment, even for minors.

The measure has been in force for four years and under it the Government has already captured more than 91,500 people, that is, 2% of the adult population of the Central American country. It has also implemented mass trials led by anonymous judges. In the processes, hundreds of detainees are grouped together, accusing them of belonging to the same gang.

With the trial beginning on Monday, the 6th Court Against Organized Crime of San Salvador could impose new sentences against several of the top leaders of the MS-13 who were already imprisoned and convicted before the emergency regime. The Prosecutor’s Office reported that of the total number of accused, 413 are already detained while 73 are still fugitives from justice.

According to Luis Enrique Amaya, international consultant on public security issues, the emergency regime is a security and justice policy similar to “fishing with a net.” This is how he explains it: “(The Government) has moved away from the principle of individualization of responsibility in criminal matters. What is legally accepted is ‘angling’, which involves an effort of investigation, capture and trial aimed at verifying the participation of each individual in certain events, even in cases of crimes committed by groups.”

The Salvadoran State has for the first time accused gang members of the crime of “rebellion,” arguing that the gang members “tried to maintain territorial control to establish a parallel State, challenging the authority of the State and attacking national sovereignty and the constitutional order.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed on Tuesday “serious concerns about the impacts on human rights derived from the excessive and undue prolongation of the emergency regime in El Salvador” and reiterated its call to the Bukele Government to end its continued use.

A new Amnesty International report also warned of risks in the administration of justice under the state of emergency, as many of those captured during the regime had only been detained “because the Police were under pressure to meet daily arrest quotas. Detentions were therefore often based on false or unconfirmed evidence, anonymous complaints or discriminatory person checks,” the report says.