Tecoluca.- Hundreds of alleged leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) gang in El Salvador continued to face this Thursday the fourth day of an unprecedented hearing in which more than 400 gang members are being tried from the Cecot, the mega-prison emblem of Nayib Bukele’s “war” against these gangs, which opened to the press for the first time in this judicial process.
The processed individuals were taken out one by one from the cells of one of the pavilions of the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), located on the outskirts of San Salvador, under strict security measures, to then place them in white chairs in front of televisions on which their image would be projected to the court in the Salvadoran capital, as EFE confirmed.
“The type of inmates being processed here (in the prison) are members of the MS13 criminal structure, a terrorist criminal organization,” said the director of Cecot, Belarmino García, in statements shared with the press.
They are, he pointed out, “historical ranfleros (ringleaders), program runners (managers), clica runners, clica palabreros (leaders), subjects who for many years caused mourning and pain to our society.”
Historical Leaders Among the Accused
According to the Attorney General’s Office, among the historical leaders tried is Borromeo Enrique Henríquez Solorzano, alias diablito de Hollywood, wanted by the United States Justice for various charges.
This is the fourth day of an open hearing under the mass trial model against more than 400 MS13 leaders, including 22 historical ringleaders, accused of various crimes, such as the 86 murders that led at the end of March 2022 to the implementation of an exception regime.
Fotografía de Dionisio Aristides Umanzor, presunto líder histórico de la Mara Salvatrucha (MS13), reacciona en una audiencia virtual este jueves desde el CECOT, en Tecoluca (El Salvador). EFE/ Rodrigo Sura
This type of trial has been denounced by social organizations for attacking the human rights of the defendants.
These 22 people are also attributed with the deaths of 80 police officers and “more than 47,000 crimes” between 2012 and 2022.
«According to the testimonies and the 13 anticipated statements that the Prosecutor’s Office has, the ringleaders gave the authorization to kill opponents, members of the police corporation, elements of the Armed Forces and people who opposed the demands, in addition to attacking police stations or against some public institutions», pointed out the Prosecutor’s Office in a bulletin.
President Nayib Bukele compared this process to the Nuremberg trials, where the main Nazi leaders were tried after World War II.
Presuntos integrantes de la Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) en el CECOT asistiendo a una audiencia virtual este jueves, en Tecoluca (El Salvador). EFE/ Rodrigo Sura
New model after law reforms
The open single hearing allows for the mass trial of alleged gang members and keeps the process active to add new defendants in the future, and it is a model established after reforms to the Penal Code of El Salvador.
At the end of March 2022, El Salvador suffered the largest escalation of murders in its recent history with the homicide of more than 80 people in three days; after these events, Congress approved the state of exception at Bukele’s request.
Fotografía de presuntos integrantes de la Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) en medio de una audiencia virtual este jueves, en el CECOT, en Tecoluca (El Salvador). EFE/ Rodrigo Sura
The controversial measure, accused of violating human rights, became the government’s main bet against gangs and earned Bukele, who maintains high approval among Salvadorans, his immediate re-election for a second term.
This regime has left more than 91,000 detainees, as well as more than 6,400 reports of human rights violations, more than 500 deaths in state custody, and various organizations accuse the Executive of committing crimes against humanity in this context.
