A Salvadoran court on Tuesday commenced a collective trial of 486 alleged members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-13), one of the largest mass trials under President Nayib Bukele's controversial emergency powers crackdown on gang violence. Prosecutors accuse the defendants of committing over 47,000 crimes between 2012 and 2022, including homicide, femicide, extortion, and arms trafficking.
The charges cover a period that includes a weekend in 2015 that was El Salvador's bloodiest since its civil war. Under a state of emergency first enacted in 2022 and repeatedly renewed, security forces have detained more than 91,500 people, and Congress has passed a decree allowing for mass trials.
Human rights groups have warned that the collective prosecutions violate due process and block defendants from accessing legal counsel. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reiterated concerns over human rights violations, stating that the emergency regime suspends rights to legal defence and inviolability of communications, and extends administrative detention timelines.
The defendants are being held across five prisons, including Cecot, a maximum-security facility opened in 2023 that symbolises Bukele's zero-tolerance approach. The prosecutor's office has presented autopsies, ballistic analyses, and witness testimony, seeking maximum prison sentences of up to 245 years per defendant for multiple charges.
Among those facing charges are alleged longstanding gang leaders who participated in a 2012-2014 truce between the government and gangs. Bukele's government claims the crackdown reduced the homicide rate to 1.3 per 100,000 people in 2023, down from 7.8 in 2022.
