Why Is El Salvador Holding Mass Trial For MS-13 Gang Members?

Sitting in rows with their hands and feet shackled, the men on mass trial in El Salvador are shadows of the figures they once cut as convicted leaders of crime gangs that once made the country one of the world's bloodiest.

The 22 defendants are veterans of MS-13, a powerful gang broken apart by President Nayib Bukele in a controversial crackdown.

Most are being held in the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Cecot) prison, a symbol of an anti-gang drive that has seen around 92,000 people incarcerated under a so-called "state of exception" policy -- the majority of them without a warrant.

Why a mass trial?

The scale of the crimes in El Salvador's gang violence is staggering. These men -- already convicted of other crimes -- are on trial over a raft of new charges, including some of the 29,000 murders allegedly committed by MS-13.

Bukele has compared the group trials, like the one facing the 22 gang leaders, to the Nuremberg proceedings against former Nazi officials after World War II.

The trials are "an exhumation of atrocious crimes" that have gone unpunished, said Ricardo Sosa, a criminologist who has investigated gangs.

But Miguel Montenegro, from the NGO Human Rights Commission, said the trials are more like a media campaign to show Bukele's "combative attitude against gangs."

It's about creating a "spectacle," said Ingrid Escobar, from the NGO Legal Aid, warning that as many as 30,000 people "could be falsely convicted" in the mass trials.

Who heads MS-13?

Heads shaved and dressed in white uniforms, the former gang bosses were held in three small rooms to listen to the testimony of a gangster-turned-witness, AFP observed during a visit to the Cecot.

One was 47-year-old Borromeo Henriquez, or the "Little Devil of Hollywood." Already serving an 87-year sentence for 497 homicides and other crimes since 1998, he faces 586 new charges.

Henriquez was one of MS-13's first wave of leaders. He joined in the 1990s while living in Los Angeles, where the gang emerged.

Unlike most of his fellow gang members, he has not tattooed his face and wears glasses, giving him an unusual look for an MS-13 veteran. Back in 2012, he delivered a proposal for ending El Salvador's brutal gang wars to the then-secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS).

Also on trial are 49-year-old Carlos Tiberio Ramirez and 47-year-old Dionisio Aristides Umanzor.

Ramirez has been imprisoned since 2001 and is serving a 94-year sentence for 500 homicides. Umanzor was arrested in 1999 and is serving a 67-year sentence for 106 killings.

Another top defendant, being tried in absentia, is Elmer Canales, known as the "Crook of Hollywood." Canales is already imprisoned in the United States.

How powerful was MS-13?

The gangs controlled 80 percent of Salvadoran territory before Bukele's crackdown that began in 2022, according to the government.

Gang leaders continued to direct operations from behind bars, and peace negotiations in 2012 revealed extensive ties between gang leaders and political figures.

MS-13 was known for a top-down command structure and a recruitment system based on hazing.

Beneath the top leadership were other lower-ranking bosses, while the gang was divided into cells known as "cliques."

During trial proceedings on Tuesday, evidence included testimony on what was called an "open valves" system -- a pipeline of instructions from bosses to underlings to murder rivals, execute internal purges, attack state agents and plan crimes.

Salvadoran authorities say around 63,000 MS-13 gang members are behind bars.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed)