Bukele imposes four-digit sentences: three gang members receive 1,029 years in prison

2024-08-30 03:57:48

President Nayib Bukele’s very strong campaign against crime in general and “gang members” called “maras” in El Salvador has added surprising phrases in the past few hours: the three members of Mara Salvatrucha” received between 300 and 400 years of tortureprison, adding between them a unique number of 1,029 years in prison, according to the Attorney General’s Office, showing that the subjects “They commit various crimes, especially brutal looting and other acts of terrorism.”

The staff report that José Alfredo Canales was prosecuted 384 years in prisonin his case for “abetment and conspiracy to commit an atrocious murder, in addition to belonging to a terrorist organization” Eduardo Ramírez and Yoni Lobothat they accept 325 and 320 years in prison, respectively, were often convicted of “extortion and irresponsible possession and handling of firearms.”

Canales, Ramírez and Lobo were charged “The crimes committed in 2017 and 2018 in the eastern part of the country”, and the Prosecutor’s Office has stated that the actions of the mafias of the guilty members are part of “have businessmen as victims, who have to pay a tax of 200 dollars a month under threats that their businesses will fight or destroy.”

The authorities don’t like this

Professional and critical journalism is a fundamental pillar of democracy. That is the reason why he always annoys those who believe that they are the true riches.

Photographs of prisons in El Salvador have made Bukele a celebrity.

Bukele’s administration faces some international questions, within the framework of a very strong “exclusion regime” that protects the inhumane prison policy, whose photos with thousands of prisoners, especially young people, have given Bukele international fame. However, human rights groups question many of these convictions or the process of those detentions, showing that they have been based on torture conditions or at least affecting human rights, but the Bukele administration rejects these accusations and describes them as “baseless accusations.” .

Therefore, he pointed out that in the last two and a half years, more than 80 thousand detainees under the unique regime, and but human rights defenders say that they have received 6,400 complaints of human rights violations, basically because of torture, in the same time that reports “more than 300 deaths will have occurred in prisons, with almost all victims showing signs of violence.”

The response of the ministers and officials of the Bukele government is unchanged: “Unfounded complaints from organizations that work only to try to protect criminals.”

Leisure swimming: plans to make meaningful sentences

Meanwhile, as a colleague, the prison government Bukele revealed that thousands of prisoners “work in different jobs in the La Esperanza Penitentiary, located outside of San Salvador, in a system reserved for common prisoners and terrorist associates.” criminals consider it the most dangerous.”

“For us it is welcome [cualquier pedido de costura]because it gives us a chance to play and avoid idleness,” he said. Raul Lopez32 years old, who with his work in the workshop already managed to reduce eight years of his sentence to 40 years in prison.

Most of the 256 inmates in the jail wore a blue vest while working at their sewing machines. According to López, most of those who showed up in the blue suit corresponded to gang partners, except for him. 29,073 prisoners of La Esperanza participate in the “Give Zero” plan, among which there are 6,000 prisoners for common crimes.

The remaining 23,000 prisoners are terrorist collaborators who are within the process of “war” against these criminal groups launched by President Nayib Bukele in March 2022 under the protection of the emergency government.

“Gang members can’t reinstall…”

“Come on [presos] that we have here, many of them have been collaborators of the terrorists, but here in our urban areas and villages it is a way of survival,” explained the director of the prison, Juan José Montano, during a visit by the press, with a group. from AFP The official explained that unlike colleagues, “Gang members cannot be reinstated because they are part of organized crime and the only way out of those groups is to die.”

“Many of these people are involved in crimes out of fear [a los pandilleros]out of survival instinct. Those are the people we try to recover and they give them a chance,” Montano emphasized.

One of the workshops that shows the most performance is the company training center clothwhere prisoners make clothes for soldiers, athletes or for the prison population itself.

About two thousand[2,000]a prisoner is released from prison every day. “part of trust” to work in support of communities, in building two hospitals or in the fumigation system to prevent dengue. In La Esperanza there is also fun, They have a choir of 25 prisoners who perform at cultural events.

Outside of the city of Santa Ana, about 70 km west of San Salvador. There is also a truck and a gigantic steel structure workshop where 5,000 common prisoners work.

El Salvador has 81,900 accused gang members detained under the unique regime, which, added to those detained for common crimes, totals more than 100,000 prisoners.

AFP/HB