On Monday, El Salvador’s attorney general announced the start of a mass trial for 486 members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, responsible for more than 47,000 crimes between 2012 and 2022.
Of the defendants, 413 are already detained in various prisons, and arrest warrants have been issued for 73.
The attorney general said 22 historical leaders of Ranfla, MS-13’s top leadership structure, as well as 212 other Ranfla members and 152 program coordinators will be charged at trial. The charges include aggravated murder, disappearance, extortion, weapons trafficking, and femicide.
MS-13 is a street gang founded in Los Angeles by Salvadoran refugees fleeing the civil war in the 1980s. In the 1990s, as many of its members were deported to their home countries, it spread to Central America and was designated as a terrorist organization in both El Salvador and the United States.
This trial will take place during the state of emergency declared by President Nayib Bukele in March 2022 under Article 29 of the El Salvador Constitution. The emergency law gave security forces greater powers to arrest and detain suspects and suspended certain constitutional protections.
El Salvador, once one of the most violent countries in the world, has reduced its murder rate to 1.3 per 100,000 residents. This is one of the lowest rates in the entire continent.
According to the government, more than 91,000 suspected gang members have been arrested since the state of emergency was implemented.
These measures have drawn criticism from several human rights groups, which accuse Bukele’s government of rights violations and abuses.
In a statement issued on April 21, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed concern that the prolonged state of emergency would “suspend the right to legal defense and inviolability of communication and extend the terms of administrative detention.”
El Salvador human rights group Cristosal said in a report released in March that critics of the government, including journalists, activists and opposition figures, will be increasingly criminalized starting in 2021.
Despite the criticism, Nayib Bukele has an approval rating of 94%, his highest since he took power in 2019, according to the latest data released by CID Gallup.
Featured image caption: MS-13 gang members face mass trial April 20th.
Featured image source: Office of the Attorney General of El Salvador.
