El Salvador's parliament on Friday extended the preventive detention of tens of thousands of alleged gang members until at least 2027.
The Legislative Assembly approved a reform of the organised crime law, 10 days before the expiry of the maximum two-year period for holding in detention more than 88,000 people suspected of belonging to, or being accomplices of, the ‘maras’ (gangs). The reform was approved by 57 legislators from the majority and three from the opposition.
The detainees were arrested from March 2022, when a state of emergency came into effect, allowing arrests without a warrant and the deployment of the army.
In order to try the thousands of people in preventive detention, the Public Prosecutor's Office will "group the defendants into a single case by gang cells," mainly Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).
Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado explained on Thursday that gang members would be presented according to their organisation, the area where they operated or their links to the crimes under investigation.
Ruling party legislator Caleb Navarro said it would be "serious" to release them, given that violence in the country is at historically low levels. He said 44 judges specialising in organised crime would be responsible for conducting the trials.
Speaking in the Chamber, opposition parliamentarian Francisco Lira warned that innocent people could be convicted in this type of trial involving groups of gang members.
"These reforms reflect the inability of the institutions responsible for administering justice in our country, because in more than two years they have not done what is required of them (...), namely to investigate the facts properly," commented his opposition colleague, Claudia Ortiz.
