First heavy sentence in El Salvador’s gang war
At war with gangs for months, the government changed the law to increase the maximum sentence for gang membership from 9 to 45 years.
More than 57,000 people have been arrested in El Salvador since the start of the offensive. (illustrative image)
AFP
The justice of El Salvador sentenced to 25 years in prison a man apprehended at the start of the state of emergency decreed to fight against gangs and which has already led to more than 57,000 arrests, announced the prosecution on Saturday.
“The first to be arrested under the exceptional regime will spend the next 25 years in prison”, indicated on Twitter Rodolfo Delgado, the attorney general of this poor Central American country whose young President Nayib Bukele declared war. to the gangs last March.
A mega-jail is under construction and legislation has been changed to increase the maximum sentence for gang membership or ‘mara’ from 9 to 45 years. The name of the convict, who belonged to a second-tier gang, the Mara Maquina, was not given by the authorities, despite the publication of his photograph on social networks.
Record popularity
The state of emergency, which has already been extended eight times, notably allows the police to make arrests without a warrant. It was decreed after an escalation of violence by criminal gangs. After a series of 87 assassinations at the end of March, the Salvadoran president had decreed a state of exception allowing the police and the army, deployed in large numbers, to arrest and imprison suspected “mareros”.
More than 57,000 people have been arrested since the start of the offensive. The criminal gangs – the most important of which are the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 – would have around 70,000 members, of whom 16,000 were already in detention at the time.
The fight against crime earned the young president record popularity. But blunders are denounced and human rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have issued criticisms and called on the president to respect human rights.
AFP
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