El Salvador extends pretrial detention for 80,000 gang suspects 2 more years

Audio By Carbonatix

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s Congress voted Friday to give government prosecutors two more years to hold the more than 80,000 people swept up under the state of emergency while they investigate alleged ties to the country’s gangs.

The Congress, controlled by President Nayib Bukele’s New Ideas party and its allies, voted 57 to 3 in favor of extending the period of pretrial incarceration.

Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said that with the extension authorities could carry out more complete investigations, present solid evidence and win sentences against members of organized crime.

Lawmakers also gave the government the option of extending for another 12 months if necessary.

Improved public safety under the state of emergency has swelled Bukele’s popularity, but the suspension of some constitutional rights and general lack of due process has drawn criticism within and outside El Salvador.

Opposition lawmaker Claudia Ortiz of the VAMOS party, said Friday it showed the government’s “inability to deliver justice.”

“They’ve had more than two years to do a serious investigation of all of the cases and be able to take all of those detained to trial, and since they haven’t done it on time, the (National) Assembly has to do a favor for the Attorney General’s Office,” she said.

Following an outburst of gang violence in March 2022, Bukele asked lawmakers for extraordinary powers to respond to a gang massacre. Among the rights the Congress agreed to suspend were the maximum time period take a prisoner before a judge, as well as fundamental protections like access to a lawyer.

Since then, more than 88,000 people have been arrested for alleged ties to gangs, with 90% still awaiting trial.

In July 2023, the Congress voted to give the government 24 months to prosecute a group of gang members. That period is up this month on Aug. 25.

Delgado said the plan is to carry out hundreds of mass trials as they’ve been able to sort the accused into groups.

“This big quantity of people isn’t going to be judged in one or two weeks,” Delgado said. “It takes a considerable amount of time for the judges to receive the evidence that links each one of them and then later issue verdicts according to each corresponding law.”