El Salvador has handed down prison sentences to 248 members of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) street gang, with one individual receiving a 1,335-year term, the attorney general’s office has announced.
The sentencing covered 43 homicides and 42 disappearances, among other crimes, but the date of the rulings and whether the accused were tried en masse were not specified. Ten other gang members received terms ranging from 463 to 958 years.
Since March 2022, President Nayib Bukele has enforced a state of emergency that allows warrantless arrests as part of a crackdown on gangs. Over 90,000 people have been detained, and around 8,000 have been released after being found not guilty, according to official sources.
The crackdown has reduced homicides to historically low levels, but human rights groups have accused security forces of abuses. The Salvadoran government blames MS-13 and Barrio 18 for approximately 200,000 deaths over three decades, with the gangs once controlling an estimated 80% of the country.
The attorney general’s office said the groups extorted business owners, demanding payments in exchange for not harming them, forcing some to close their businesses out of fear. The United States has designated MS-13 and several other Central and South American gangs as foreign terrorist organisations.
