On Monday, El Salvador’s Attorney General announced the beginning of a mass trial of 486 alleged members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, who are accused of more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022.
Among the defendants, 413 are already detained in different penitentiary centers, while 73 have arrest warrants issued against them.
The Attorney General said that 22 historical kingpins of the Ranfla, MS-13’s top leadership structure, will be prosecuted in the trial, along with 212 other Ranfla members and 152 program coordinators. Charges include aggravated homicide, disappearance of persons, extortion, arms trafficking, and femicide.
MS-13 was founded in Los Angeles as a street gang in the 1980s by Salvadoran refugees who fled the civil war. It spread to Central America when many of its members were deported to their home countries during the 1990s and has been designated as a terrorist organization both by El Salvador and the U.S.
The trial takes place amid El Salvador’s state of emergency, which President Nayib Bukele declared in March 2022 under Article 29 of the country’s Constitution. Under the emergency act, security forces have broader powers to arrest and detain suspects, while certain constitutional protections have been suspended.
Once among the most violent countries in the world, El Salvador has managed to reduce its murder rate to 1.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest in the whole continent.
More than 91,000 suspected gang members have been arrested since the implementation of the state of emergency, according to the government.
These measures have drawn criticism from several human rights organizations, which accuse Bukele’s government of rights violations and abuses.
In a statement published on April 21, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed concerns that the prolonged state of emergency “suspends the rights to a legal defense and to the inviolability of communications, and also extends administrative detention timelines.”
In a report published last March, Salvadoran rights group Cristosal said that critics of the government, including journalists, activists, and opposition figures, have faced increasing criminalization since 2021.
Despite the critics, the latest data published by CID Gallup show that Nayib Bukele has reached a 94% approval rating, the highest level since he came into power in 2019.
Featured image description: MS-13 gang members sat through a mass trial on April 20.
Featured image credit: El Salvador Attorney General’s Office.