US EditionEl Salvador Begins Mass Trial of 486 Alleged MS-13 Members
Prosecutors say the defendants ordered 47,000 crimes, and 413 are held at CECOT as the court seeks maximum sentences.
- On Monday, El Salvador began a collective trial of 486 alleged Mara Salvatrucha members accused of 47,000 crimes, including 29,000 homicides committed between 2012 and 2022.
- President Nayib Bukele declared a "war" on gangs after they reportedly controlled 80 percent of Salvadoran territory, prompting a 2022 state of emergency that arrested over 91,000 suspected members.
- MS-13 faces rebellion charges because they "sought to...establish a parallel state," the Attorney General's office said, with the trial including national leadership, coordinators, and founders of the organization.
- York-Based Human Rights Watch and regional groups have denounced the mass trials, citing torture reports, more than 500 deaths in prison, and a complete lack of due process for detainees.
- Anonymous judges are handing down mass sentences via video-link from prison as state prosecutors stated they have "ample evidence to request the maximum sentences" against the defendants.
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KESQBukele Defends the Mass Trials of Gang Leaders and Compares Them to the Trials of Nazis at Nuremberg
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, drew a parallel between the mass trials that began this week in the country—where 486 alleged members of the MS-13 gang are being tried—and the Nuremberg trials in Germany, in which more than twenty high-ranking Nazi officers were tried for crimes committed during the Holocaust. “These are the ‘alleged gang members’ that some international media outlets are talking about. The same ones that certain NGO…
Sitting in a court of their prison, some 220 members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), tried since Monday in a mass trial in El Salvador, listened on Thursday to the terrifying story of witnesses about the torture and murders committed by the gang.
In an unprecedented trial against the Mara Salvatrucha command structure, hundreds of gang members heard detailed testimonies about the violence committed by Assis
In El Salvador, 486 people have been on trial simultaneously since Monday, April 20, accused of being members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, including 22 accused of being historical leaders of the organization. President Nayib Bukele was present for part of this mass trial, which he compared to the Nuremberg trials, in which 21 high-ranking Nazi officials were tried after World War II. However, human rights NGOs consider the trial unjust.
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