Hundreds of alleged Mara Salvatrucha gang members sat chained, shaved and mute as they were accused of murder and torture during a mass trial at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT jail on Thursday. Seated in neat columns of plastic chairs in the prison’s main hall, some 220 defendants were accused of collectively carrying out more than 29,000 murders. “We burned her genitals and buttocks” one witness said over the loudspeaker, testifying in a mass trial El Salvador’s president has compared to those...
Footage released by the attorney general's office shows large groups of men in prison attending the trial via video link.
Mass trial for nearly 500 alleged gang members in El Salvador
The new sentencing measure comes as President Nayib Bukele oversees a four-year-long state of emergency against crime.