(San Salvador) A court in El Salvador on Friday ordered the continued pretrial detention until 2025 of 403 leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, the same day Congress extended the state of emergency in the country.
“The evidence presented establishes the link of all these leaders with the structure of the MS, which is why the court ordered that all of them remain in pre-trial detention until 2025,” pending the prosecution presenting new evidence or strengthens evidence already presented, the Attorney General’s Office said on the social network X.
According to the prosecution, these MS-13 leaders are “linked” to 37,402 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, including “29,416 aggravated homicides”.
They also face 907 cases of disappearances, extortion, arms trafficking, human trafficking and rebellion.
The minimum sentence incurred “goes up to 95 years”, because “abundant evidence” of the crimes of which they are accused was presented at the hearing, the same source said.
The San Salvador Organized Crime Court, which led this virtual hearing for inmates in a dozen prisons, also ordered the capture of 89 other MS-13 leaders on the run and facing the same charges .
In total, 492 people are affected by this case. Among them are 24 managers of the higher structure, 215 middle managers and 253 regional managers.
This hearing comes as the official results of Sunday’s presidential and legislative elections have still not been published. The outgoing president Nayib Bukele, acclaimed by the population for having launched this “war against the gangs”, declared himself re-elected with 85% of the votes.
The Salvadoran parliament, where Mr. Bukele’s party, Nuevas ideas, holds the majority, approved on Friday a new extension of the state of emergency which authorizes arrests without warrant and deployment of the army.
“The extension of the emergency regime is approved,” declared the President of Congress, Ernesto Castro, after indicating that it would be in force until March 11.
For almost two years, the state of emergency has allowed the arrest of nearly 76,000 suspects, most of them members of the MS-13 and Barrio 18 maras. Some 7,000 people unjustly arrested have been released.