This article was published 24 April 2026
SAN SALVADOR, April 23 (Reuters) – From inside a Salvadoran mega prison, more than one hundred alleged gang members sit in rows, wrists cuffed and ankles shackled, to watch court proceedings on a large screen that will decide the fate of all of them.
Reuters witnessed the scene on Thursday as the court oversaw the trial of 486 suspected gang members in the largest mass trial yet under President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gang violence.
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Since April 2022, Bukele has used state-of-emergency powers to suspend constitutional rights and detain over 91,000 people, primarily those suspected of being members of the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs. His New Ideas party also passed a law that made El Salvador Latin America’s only country to allow mass trials.
Bukele, who has been in office since 2019, is publicizing the current trial and has granted Reuters access to the prison.
The defendants are being held across five prisons including the maximum-security CECOT opened in 2023 that has become a symbol of Bukele’s zero-tolerance crackdown.
The prisoners at CECOT dress in all-white uniforms and have their heads shaved, some revealing tattoos linked to MS-13. Heavily armed guards stand watch.
Prosecutors have accused the alleged gang members of more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, including extortion, arms trafficking and homicide.
But the defendants in the mass trial are only accused of gang membership and would be sentenced based on affiliation, said Ana Maria Mendez, director for Central America of the Washington Office on Latin America. Like all criminal court proceedings in El Salvador, the trial is closed to the public.