SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A sweeping three-month court proceeding against hundreds of alleged MS-13 gang members came to a close Wednesday in El Salvador, with prosecutors wrapping up their closing arguments and calling for the harshest possible sentences.
The trial involved 485 members of the international criminal organization known as Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. Charges against the defendants include homicide, extortion, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and human trafficking. Human rights organizations have raised serious concerns about the proceedings, arguing that defendants’ rights are being violated under the country’s ongoing state of emergency.
That state of emergency, which took effect in March 2022, suspended certain constitutional protections. Since then, tens of thousands of Salvadorans have been taken into custody.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the accused gang members are collectively charged with involvement in 14,420 criminal acts — among them 444 killings — that allegedly took place between 2012 and 2022. Prosecutors are seeking the maximum penalty for each offense, which could mean life imprisonment for some defendants and a total of $9 million in civil damages.
Prosecutors also argued that MS-13 — which has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States — used roughly 1,200 minors in its criminal operations, exploited 638 women, and operated through 32 separate groups, two of which functioned from outside El Salvador.
As part of the hearings, prosecutors presented audio recordings of phone calls attributed to gang leaders, in which the individuals allegedly issued orders for killings and other criminal acts.
The trial was held virtually, with defendants appearing on camera from the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT — a massive prison facility constructed under President Nayib Bukele’s government. The facility bans visits, recreational activities, and educational programs. It has also held hundreds of migrants who were deported from the United States.
No timeline has been given for when a verdict might be delivered.
El Salvador made large-scale group trials like this one possible through a criminal code reform enacted in July 2023, which allows individuals detained under the state of emergency to be grouped together based on gang affiliation or geographic territory.
Government officials report that more than 92,480 people accused of gang membership or gang ties have been imprisoned since the state of emergency began. Bukele has stated that 8,000 people who were wrongly detained have since been released. Human rights groups, however, say they have recorded more than 6,000 complaints of rights violations and unlawful detentions, and have documented at least 547 deaths among those held in custody.
Despite ongoing criticism, the state of emergency continues to enjoy broad public support in El Salvador, where many citizens have grown weary of years of gang violence and credit Bukele with making the country safer.
This marks El Salvador’s second mass gang trial. Last November, 45 members of the Barrio 18 gang were found guilty on charges including extortion and homicide, with one of the gang’s leaders receiving a sentence of 397 years in prison.
Among the MS-13 figures currently on trial are Dionisio Arístides Umanzor Osorio, known by the alias “El Sirra de Teclas,” along with Borromeo Henríquez Solórzano, also called “Diablito de Hollywood,” Carlos Tiberio Ramírez Valladares, known as “Snayder,” and César Antonio López Larios, whose alias is “Greñas.”
