A group of 94 gang members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) were sentenced this Monday to sentences of up to 1,090 years in prison for their participation in various crimesincluding the murder of two police officers, reported the Salvadoran Prosecutor’s Office.
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The source indicated that the gang members were “found guilty of 54 cases of serious crimesincluding several aggravated homicides” and that the ruling was issued by a specialized anti-mafia court.
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A representative of the Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that César Alfredo Romero received a sentence of 1,090, while the rest received sentences of up to 500 years.
He argued that within the trial, which lasted two months, a change was made in the classification of the crime in 23 cases, going from deprivation of liberty to aggravated homicide.
“We were able to establish through proof that people were deprived of their liberty with the purpose of being murdered,” he said. Among those convicted are cell leaders, gang members and others with lower ranks within the structure.
A wave of murders the last weekend of last March resulted in 87 victims. In response, Congress approved the suspension of constitutional guarantees to give special powers to the Executive of Nayib Bukele.
According to the president, the “war against the gangs” is close to being won, as he has called his strategy to combat these gangs.
The country has been under this measure for more than three months, which has been extended three times in Congress, and the authorities register almost 42,000 arrests and only 1%, according to the president, would be arrests by “error”.
The charge d’affaires of the United States embassy in El Salvador, Patrick Ventrell, acknowledged on Friday the “strong actions” of the Bukele government against the gangs, but pointed out that the exception regime in force since the end of March is “unsustainable.”
He warned that ending the emergency regime “will leave innocent Salvadorans unjustly imprisoned along with the criminals that the government is trying to remove from the streets.”
There are more than 3,000 complaints of human rights violations that local and international organizationsin addition to the Office for the Defense of Human Rights (PDHH), have received, they include arbitrary arrests and torture, among others.
The gangs, a phenomenon considered a legacy of the civil war (1980-1992) and which was strengthened by the deportation of gang members from the United States, have resisted the security plans implemented in the last four administrations.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE
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