More than 480 alleged leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha gang respond for 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, in a single massive hearing. This is the largest prosecution against criminal gang leaders under the reformed judicial system of the Nayib Bukele government, accused by some organizations of violating due process and constitutional rights.

First modification: 04/21/2026 - 17:32 Last modification: 04/21/2026 - 17:36

The Attorney General's Office of the Republic of El Salvador (FGR) brought "the command structures" of the Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13) gang "for the first time" to a mass trial on Monday, April 20, after the implementation of a chain of reforms to the criminal code allowed for macro-hearings from the end of 2025.

The FGR reported on social networks the beginning of the trial with photos showing squads of prisoners chained hand and foot, dressed in white, shaved and wearing face masks, while they followed the course of the hearing from inside the prison.

The 486 members of MS-13 must answer for charges of homicides, femicides, extortion, drug trafficking, disappearances and arms trafficking.

In addition, they were charged with rebellion, "by trying to maintain territorial control to establish a parallel State, challenging the authority of the State and attacking national sovereignty and the constitutional order," states the FGR brief.

To display this content from X (Twitter), you must allow audience measurement and advertising cookies.

The Prosecutor's Office pointed out that those responsible for the violence at that time, whom it accuses of "murdering 86 victims" in March 2022 alone, were accused in the macro-hearing on Monday.

The prosecuting body also indicated that among the accused there are "413 who are already imprisoned in Cecot", the Terrorism Confinement Center that has emerged as a symbol of the questioned war against gangs.

Likewise, the Prosecutor's Office issued arrest warrants for "73 subjects" who are being prosecuted as absentees.

The Public Ministry did not detail whether the defendants were captured during the emergency regime, nor the length of time the judicial process will last.

Of course, he was confident that the "ample support of compelling evidence will allow the imposition of maximum sentences on each of the accused."

The media were not authorized to enter the macro audience.

Read alsoEl Salvador approves life imprisonment for minors for serious crimes: security or setback in DD. HH?

Under what regulations is a macrotrial possible in El Salvador?

These types of mass trials are possible in El Salvador due to multiple reforms to the criminal code promoted by the Government of Nayib Bukele since 2022, after the country registered record figures of insecurity.

The foundations of the legal framework to massively prosecute gang members in El Salvador are in the Law against Organized Crime and Complex Crimes, approved two decades ago.

In a country historically hit by the presence of these criminal gangs, the regulation promoted the creation of specialized courts and agile procedures to judge complex criminal structures, which the law defines as organized, hierarchical groups, with the capacity to incorporate new members and operate transnationally.

To display this YouTube content, you must allow advertising and audience measurement cookies.

An extension on your browser appears to be blocking the video player from loading. In order to view this content, you must disable it on this site.

However, after the establishment of the emergency regime, the Law against Organized Crime has undergone multiple reforms and transitional provisions.

In 2022, for example, it was modified to expand the use of the "opportunity criterion" in favor of members of criminal structures who collaborated with the Prosecutor's Office, which opened the door to abbreviated processes and significant reductions in sentences for gang members who ratted out other members.

In July 2023, the Legislative Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, approved a package of changes that increased penalties against gang leaders, created the figure of "collaborators" for undercover operations and imposed on judges the obligation to accept advance statements from witnesses, victims or experts when the Prosecutor's Office requests it, which reduces the real possibility of contradiction and defense of the accused.

At the same time, the Prosecutor's Office was authorized to group multiple defendants under the exceptional regime in a single judicial process, as long as they shared criteria of structure, name, operation and territory.

A reform of August 2025 consolidated this scheme with the formal creation of the figure of "Single Open Hearing" for criminal structure, what the Government and the Prosecutor's Office today call "macro hearing".

A peculiarity of this figure is that "it remains open as long as there are members of the criminal structure without judging", which allows a judge to close and reopen the case as many times as he considers necessary within a period of up to two years.

After the entry into force of this measure at the end of 2025, El Salvador has attended hearings with 58, 135, 163 or more defendants per case.

In a virtual mass hearing in February 2024, 492 MS-13 leaders and members were prosecuted for more than 37,000 crimes.

Although similar in number of defendants, Monday's macro hearing has deserved special attention as it was focused on judging the historical leadership of MS-13, who would have directed the criminal strategy in the last decade.

Can the megatrial mark the future of security in El Salvador?

This mass trial marks a turning point in the Government's strategy to confront gang violence in the country. The situation in El Salvador has undergone a profound transformation since President Nayib Bukele established an emergency regime in 2022 with the aim of dismantling groups such as MS-13 and Barrio 18. From then on, the authorities promoted an unprecedented offensive based on mass arrests, collective judicial processes and the deployment of military forces in communities historically dominated by these criminal structures.

The most evident impact has been a historic reduction in homicides and crimes such as extortion, which has considerably weakened the territorial presence of the gangs. Many of its members have chosen to hide, abandon their areas of influence or even leave the country. However, intelligence reports warn that these organizations have not been completely eradicated: they still retain residual cells, support networks and a certain capacity for reorganization, although significantly reduced.

This panorama of greater security coexists, however, with growing international controversy. Various human rights organizations and media have denounced arbitrary detentions, judicial processes without guarantees and alleged abuses within the prison system, where hundreds of deaths in custody and thousands of complaints of violations of fundamental rights have been reported.

Added to this are recent legal reforms - such as the possibility of imposing life sentences even on minors - that reflect a progressive hardening of the security model and fuel criticism of a possible authoritarian drift. In this context, El Salvador is experiencing a paradox: it has become one of the countries with the lowest levels of visible violence in the region, but under a prolonged regime of exception that keeps the debate open on the balance between security and the rule of law.

Criticism of a "repressive model"

In 2025, El Salvador consolidated a "repressive model" in terms of security, marked by "massive and arbitrary" arrests, Amnesty International denounced on Monday, April 20, while the more than 480 alleged gang members were being tried en masse.

The NGO's report on the Situation of Human Rights in the World speaks of "widespread reports of torture, deaths in custody and forced disappearances" within Salvadoran prisons, a country in which more than 90,000 people have been imprisoned since the beginning of the emergency regime.

Amnesty International reported 470 deaths in custody at the end of 2025 with "causes related to torture, unjustified denial of adequate and timely medical care and unsanitary detention conditions."

Human Rights Watch has also collected testimonies of torture and other abuses against prisoners in El Salvador, including those deported from the United States, following the bilateral agreement signed with the White House.

Even more: among the constitutional rights suppressed by Bukele to oil his prosecution machinery is the right to defense, which has resulted in many of the accused not being able to have contact with their lawyer.

However, criticism of Bukele's security model has not prevented the Government's popularity from skyrocketing at the dawn of the emergency regime. This situation allowed the president to seek immediate re-election despite the fact that the Constitution prohibited it, in a country that seems to exchange votes for imprisonment.

With EFE and local media

Related keywords

The content you requested does not exist or is no longer available.