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On 21 April 2026, a Salvadoran court began the mass trial of over 400 alleged leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha criminal gang, commonly known as MS-13, in a case involving more than 47,000 crimes prosecutors say were committed between 2012 and 2022.
The Tribunal Sexto contra el Crimen Organizado initiated what prosecutors described as the first mass prosecution targeting the MS-13 command structure, with defendants including members of the ranfla – the gang’s highest leadership body – as well as regional commanders and program coordinators from across the country.
The scale of the proceedings is unprecedented. Prosecutors said the 486 defendants ordered homicides, femicides, extortion, arms trafficking, and forced disappearances, and also charged them with rebellion for allegedly seeking to establish a parallel state through territorial control.
The Salvadoran Prosecutor’s Office requested the judge to impose the maximum prison sentence for each crime, meaning a single defendant could face up to 245 years in prison if found guilty of all charges.
Among the most striking allegations is that the case includes orders given to kill 86 people between 25 and 27 March 2022 – considered the most violent weekend in post-war El Salvador. Notable defendants include long-standing MS-13 leaders such as Borromeo Henriquez and Dionisio Umanzor, who participated in the 2012–2014 truce between the government and the gangs during the presidency of Mauricio Funes.
The trial takes place against the backdrop of President Nayib Bukele’s ongoing security crackdown. El Salvador has been under a state of exception since March 2022, which has suspended fundamental rights including the right to be informed of the reasons for detention and the right to access legal counsel. Security forces can intercept telecommunications without a court order, and detention without a preliminary hearing has been extended from 72 hours to 15 days. Of the 486 accused, 413 are held at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), Bukele’s high-security mega-prison, while others are detained in maximum-security facilities at Zacatecoluca and Izalco.
The proceedings raise serious fair trial concerns. Hearings are conducted via video link from prison, with defendants appearing before anonymous judges – a format that rights organisations say does not meet international fair trial standards. Human Rights Watch and regional rights organization Cristosal have warned that the mass trial format risks convicting innocent individuals by failing to individualize criminal responsibility. Rights groups have documented more than 500 deaths in state custody, reports of torture, and the elimination of evidentiary hearings through recent legal reforms. At the international level, UN experts have stated that mass trials “undermine the exercise of the right to defense and the presumption of innocence of detainees”, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has expressed serious concern about the unjustified and excessive prolongation of the state of exception. Bukele himself has acknowledged that at least 8,000 innocent people were arrested under the state of exception and have since been released.
The trial thus encapsulates the central tension of the Bukele model: government statistics show a drastic drop in homicides since Bukele took office in 2019 – from what was once among the highest homicide rates in the world – yet the methods employed continue to draw sharp condemnation from human rights bodies for their systematic departure from due process guarantees recognised under international law.
