An unprecedented trial began Monday in El Salvador of 486 accused of belonging to the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang. This is the first trial against senior gang leaders. Members of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) are accused of committing more than 29,000 murders. But the mass trial raises concerns about the regime's authoritarian tendencies. About 91,000 people are detained under the exceptional regime approved in March 2022, which allows arrests without arrest warrants.

Published on: 04/24/2026 - 16:40

486 members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang in El Salvador are on trial via videoconference from various prisons. This is the first trial against senior gang leaders. Members of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) are accused of committing more than 29,000 murders.

Since Monday, about 220 members of the gang, which the United States classifies as a terrorist organization, have been sitting in the courtyard of their prison. There they hear horrifying accounts from witnesses about torture and killings committed by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang in El Salvador.

One of the gang's crimes led to the killing of 87 people in March 2022, in an incident that prompted President Najib Bukela to declare a battle against the gangs that were spreading in the country. The "MS-13" gang and its rival "Barrio 18" gang controlled 80% of the territory in the country at one point, according to Bukela.

“We burned the victims’ genitals and buttocks.”

Inside the Sikot Detention Center for those accused of terrorism, the defendants sat completely upright on plastic chairs, with their hands and legs shackled and wearing white shirts and shorts, listening in complete silence to the narrations broadcast through loudspeakers.

One of the gang members told a judge who was questioning him, “We used to burn the victims’ genitals and buttocks,” indicating that he used to torture and kill the victims on the orders of his leaders.

Two “protected” witnesses described how the gang leaders were ordering the killing from within their prisons, in a practice known as “opening the valves” (i.e. launching criminal operations), according to what Deputy Public Prosecutor for Organized Crime Max Muñoz later explained, in a post on the X platform.

Senior leadership structure

Among the accused were about twenty commanders and dozens of their aides, some of whom were giving journalists threatening looks.

The 15 individuals were distributed among three small halls in Ranfla Nacional, the upper command structure of the MS-13 gang, and were directly responsible for approximately 9,000 crimes.

The most prominent of these are Borromeo Henriquez, nicknamed “The Devil of Hollywood,” and Carlos Tiberio Ramirez, nicknamed “Snyder of Pasadena.” They both listened to the accusations without doing anything.

Also present in the large hall was Dionisio Aristides Umanzor, nicknamed “Serra,” who led one of the most violent “cells.”

"These individuals have caused grief and pain to our community for many years," Belarmino Garcia, director of the Cecot Center, told reporters.

Mass trials are on the rise in El Salvador, where about 91,000 people are detained under the extraordinary regime adopted in March 2022, which allows arrests without arrest warrants. Human rights organizations have since denounced arbitrary arrests, torture and deaths in detention.

France 24/AFP

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