Nearly 500 terrorist gang members hauled in for mass trial in El Salvador as country's crime clean-up continues

Dan McDonald
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:04:12 +0000

The mass trial of hundreds of MS-13 gang members has begun in El Salvador, with the group charged with a host of offences, including murder, kidnapping, drug and arms trafficking.

According to the country's attorney general's office, the suspected gangsters are accused of committing over 47,000 crimes between 2012 and 2022.

The Latin American nation - led by President Nayib Bukele - has said it has "compelling" evidence that would pave the way for the group to be handed "maximum penalties" if found guilty.

The country's "war on gangs" began after a wave of violence erupted in March 2022, which saw almost 90 people killed over the course of a single weekend.

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Shortly after the outbreak, Mr Bukele declared a state of emergency - handing the state powers to arrest suspected affiliates and supporters of the criminal gangs.

The crackdown has seen tens of thousands of suspected members arrested, with many holed up in the country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Centre prison.

The maximum security mega-prison was opened in January 2023 and has the capacity to house up to 40,000 inmates.

Human rights groups have raged at Mr Bukele's administration over the use of the facility, claiming detainees face regular beatings, sleep deprivation and overcrowded cells without windows or air conditioning.

In total, 413 MS-13 members are already behind bars with a further 73 with active arrest warrants against them.

The group - originally formed in Los Angeles by Salvadorean migrants and later spreading after members were deported - was designated as a terror group in the US by Donald Trump last year.

As part of the President's illegal immigration crackdown, his administration brokered a prisoner exchange deal with El Salvador to send MS-13 affiliates to the Latin American country.

Mr Bukele's zero-tolerance approach to crime has also faced the fury of so-called UN experts, who have said his Government "cannot trample on fair trial rights in the name of public safety".

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But the El Salvadorian attorney general's office says MS-13 "has operated systematically, instilling fear and grief in Salvadorean families" for several years.

The UN has also condemned the country's use of mass trials, insisting they "undermine the exercise of the right to defence and the presumption of innocence of detainees".

The US-based Human Rights Watch group has estimated that around 118,000 people are currently locked up in jails across El Salvador.

It claims this number is over double the prison capacity in the country and therefore "significantly worsening already poor prison conditions".

The group has also claimed that "many detainees have no apparent connections to gang-related violence".

Since Mr Bukele came to power in 2019, El Salvador has transformed the country from the murder capital of the world to one of the safest in the Americas.

Over the course of a decade, there has been a mammoth 98 per cent decrease in homicides.

In 2015, the Latin American nation had a homicide rate of 103 per 100,000, collapsing to just 1.3 to 1.9 per 100,000 in 2025.

According to a 2024 Gallup poll, 88 per cent of Salvadoreans report feeling safe to walk home alone at night - far higher than Britain, America, Germany and a host of other Western countries.

Mr Bukele - who commands one of the highest approval ratings for any national leader - has repeatedly defended his administration's approach.

In a 2024 address to the UN, he told the assembly that "by imprisoning thousands, we have freed millions".