A court in El Salvador has imposed prison sentences on more than 250 people identified as members of Mara Salvatrucha, within a mega-trial against nearly 500 alleged gang members. This process has been equated by the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, to the Nuremberg Trials, in which the leadership of Nazi Germany was put on trial after World War II.
The Second Court Against Organized Crime of San Salvador has set sentences of up to 85 years in prison for a total of 254 members of Mara Salvatrucha who operated in the department of Cabañas, as reported by the Salvadoran Prosecutor's Office in a statement disseminated on social media.
The Public Ministry has explained that "These gang members had different functions that allowed them to maintain control and thus facilitate their illicit activities in different areas of that department," and has emphasized that all have been convicted of crimes committed between 2013 and 2022.
Among those sentenced is Eugenio Morales, considered one of the high-ranking members of the gang, who has received a sentence of 85 years in prison. In addition, 80 other defendants have been punished with 60 years in prison, while 173 have received sentences of 30 years of confinement.
This procedure has become the first mass trial of its kind against leaders of a criminal structure, in this case Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and covers thousands of crimes attributed to the organization. Among them are murder orders against at least 87 people in a single weekend in March 2022, an episode that led Bukele to declare a "war" against gangs through a state of exception that has so far resulted in more than 91,000 arrests.
The Salvadoran Legislative Assembly approved last week a new extension of the state of exception in force since March 2022, so the measure will be extended for 30 more days, supported by the Government's arguments about its effectiveness in the fight against gangs and crime.
In this context, the Presidency of El Salvador has maintained in recent years that no homicides were registered in the country on Tuesday, "a result that allows Salvadoran families to carry out their activities with tranquility and confidence." "The security strategies promoted by the Government of President Nayib Bukele continue to generate results for the benefit of the population," the Presidential House has stressed.
Bukele himself responded in April to criticism of these mega-trials and defended that "these 486 terrorists are not minor offenders." "They are well-known gang leaders, most of them already convicted of crimes they personally committed, including murder, rape, often followed by murder, extortion, and kidnapping," concluded the Salvadoran president.