El Salvador issues 1,048-year sentences to gang members

A court in El Salvador has given individual prison sentences exceeding 1,000 years to gang members convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering and other crimes, the Attorney General’s office said Wednesday.

The hefty sentences come in the context of right-wing President Nayib Bukele’s ongoing war against gangs, launched in 2022, which has led to the arrest of more than 90,000 alleged gang members, with many being held in the country’s notorious maximum security prisons.

The El Gremio gang was targeted for “drug trafficking, money laundering and illicit associations,” prosecutors said in an X post.

Two of the 28 gang members were sentenced to 1,048 years in prison.

In March, the Bukele-controlled Congress approved a constitutional reform that removed the previous maximum sentence of 60 years and replaced it with life imprisonment for murderers, rapists and terrorists.

The maximum sentence was later extended to also apply to children under the age of 18.

Bukele governs El Salvador with absolute power, and NGOs say the country lacks judicial independence.

Human rights groups also accuse Bukele’s government of committing crimes against humanity and imprisoning innocent people.

According to an Amnesty International tally, hundreds of people have died in custody and thousands have faced arbitrary detention during Bukele’s crackdown.