El Salvador MS-13 mass trial verdicts due Monday

A court in El Salvador is expected to issue verdicts on Monday in a mass trial of 485 alleged leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13, Deputy organized crime prosecutor Max Munoz said.

The defendants face more than 47,000 charges, including homicide, femicide, extortion, drug trafficking and forced disappearances. Munoz announced the verdict date on X. In June, he said the court would impose “sentences of thousands of years” on the defendants and said they were “definitely not getting out of the prison system.”

Salvadoran authorities are conducting mass trials of thousands of suspected gang members as part of President Nayib Bukele's crackdown on crime. Bukele has compared the mass trials to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis in the 1940s.

Since Bukele declared a war on gangs in 2022, more than 90,000 people have been locked up. Human rights groups accuse the government of committing crimes against humanity and imprisoning innocent people. According to an Amnesty International tally, hundreds of people have died in custody.

MS-13 is one of Central America's most powerful criminal gangs and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States. Bukele remains popular at home for his hardline security policies, which have also drawn condemnation over rights breaches, and he will seek a third presidential term next year.