Over 480 El Salvador alleged gang leaders on trial for 47,000 crimes

A Salvadoran court on Tuesday (April 21) began the mass trial of over 400 alleged leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha criminal gang, commonly known as MS-13, in a case involving more than 47,000 crimes prosecutors say were committed between 2012 and 2022.

Prosecutors said the 486 defendants ordered homicides, feminicides, extortion, arms trafficking and forced disappearances, and also charged them with rebellion for allegedly seeking to establish a parallel state through territorial control.

The Salvadoran Prosecutor’s Office, which has presented autopsies, ballistic analyses, and witness testimony as evidence, requested the judge to impose the maximum prison sentence for each crime, meaning that a single defendant could face a sentence of up to 245 years in prison if found guilty of all charges.

Authorities said the case included orders given to kill 86 people between March 25 and 27, 2022, considered the most violent weekend in post-war El Salvador.

The defendants are being held across five prisons, with most defendants detained at CECOT, a notorious maximum-security prison opened by the Bukele administration in 2023 that has come to embody El Salvador's zero-tolerance crackdown on gang violence.

Human rights groups have described conditions there as inhumane, with allegations of torture, round-the-clock surveillance, and no outside contact permitted - including access to legal counsel.

Among those on trial in a virtual hearing are long-standing MS-13 gang leaders such as Borromeo Henriquez and Dionisio Umanzor, who participated in the 2012-2014 truce between the government and the gangs during the presidency of Mauricio Funes.

Production: Wilfredo Pineda, Rodolfo Pena Roja, Liamar Ramos/Reuters