According to El Far, “the director of Penitentiary Centers ordered the removal of hundreds of novelty books and maximum security prison computers; and the tax prosecutor dismantled the task force investigating these negotiations.”
The digital newspaper El Far revealed that the government of Nayib Bukele held negotiations with the three main gangs in the country on maximum security penalties to keep under the number of homicides and subsequently ordered the removal from the prisons of documents that testified. of these meetings.
According to the publication, The meetings were in 2020 between representatives of the government and the Mara Salvatrucha-13 gangs, Revolutionary Neighborhood 18 and Southern Neighborhood 18, which raised a series of demands that include improvements in prison living conditions and benefits for its members at large.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office initiated a formal investigation in this regard, called “Cas Catedral”, but, according to El Far, “the director of Penitentiary Centers ordered the removal of hundreds of novelty books and maximum security prison computers; and the prosecutor imposed by the pro-government assembly dismantled the task force investigating these negotiations. “
According to the report, the Prosecutor’s Office documented the meetings through audios, photographs, documents and witnesses. “For months, prosecutors intercepted phones, physically tracked, confiscated documents, took photographs and interviewed witnesses,” he says.
According to the publication of the Lighthouse, on March 4, 2020, Osiris Luna enters with four hooded men in the penitentiary of Zacatecoluca, to meet with Devil of the MS-13. Photo Courtesy: The Lighthouse.
However, Rodolfo Prim, the prosecutor imposed by the Assembly dominated by the bureaucracy on May 1, dismantled the unit that carried out the investigation, the Anti-Mafia Task Force.
El Far reports three tax sources confirming that the GEA was dismantled after former prosecutor Germán Arriaza resigned as head of the Anti-Corruption and Anti-Impunity Unit of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, following Delgado’s arrival.
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Arriaza had not only conducted investigations linked to negotiations with gangs, but also related to irregular purchases during the pandemic linked to the Ministries of Health and Agriculture, the publication recalls.
The lighthouse reveals that on April 2, 2020, a security camera from sector 6 of the Zacatecoluca prison recorded Osiris Luna accompanying a procession of hooded people who were shown to several inmates receiving workshops at the dining area of this sector. Afterwards, the hooded men met behind closed doors with leaders of the Barrio 18. Photo Courtesy: El Far.
The digital newspaper states that on September 7, 2020, four days after publishing the first revelations about the case, the Prosecutor’s Office opened several prisons, as well as the central offices of the Directorate General of Penitentiary Centers (DGCP), where prosecutors “they found that the operation to negotiate with the gangs was much more voluminous and complex”: not only did it include the MS-13, but also the two factions of the Neighborhood 18, “the imprisoned leaders also received visits of public officials “.
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Prosecutors, according to El Far, also discovered an increased number of irregular visits to maximum security prisons, in which prison director Osiris Luna authorized hooded people to enter penitentiaries to meet with leaders of the three gangs, bypassing all legal entry protocols, including records, and even letting them in without at least identifying themselves.
“Prosecutors concluded that these mysterious hooded men were generally officials of the current Directorate of Social Tissue Reconstruction, led by Carlos Marroquín, and leaders of free youth gangs who came in to receive instructions and pass on information to their imprisoned leaders.” , explain.
According to El Far, on March 31, 2020 Osiris Luna allowed 5 hooded people to enter the Zacatecoluca penitentiary without identifying themselves and meet with 8 leaders of the 3 main gangs in the country behind closed doors. In the image, Luna gives a tour of the hooded men by special sector 6 of this prison. Photo Courtesy: The Lighthouse
He adds that in one of the audios, dated August 6, 2020, a gang member talks to another about preparations to enter, and assures him that government representatives are nervous: “… They are the least bit worried. mistake that we can make on our part and they also take care not to make the slightest mistake so that this does not fail and does not come to light that there is an understanding “.
According to the publication, the gangs called on the Bukele Government to cease massive Army and Police operations against them, and to indiscriminately persecute their “just for being tattooed”; they asked for funding for microenterprises and employment for their members; visits by relatives to prisons and modifications to the maximum security regime, among other aspects.
El Far says another of the findings released by prosecutors is that Luna “tried to erase the traces of gang officials’ meetings and the irregular admissions of hooded people to detention centers … Just two days after publication from the lighthouse, prison intelligence personnel, under explicit orders from Luna, withdrew 221 news books from Zacatecoluca’s maximum security prison and computer hard drives from the dates he had entered with hooded Izalco Phase III “.
The digital newspaper says he tried to communicate with the institutions mentioned at work. From the press office of the Prosecutor’s Office replied that “investigations into negotiations with the gangs are still ongoing.” At the Government Press Office, where a response was requested from the Director of Social Tissue, Marroquín, they replied that they would notify him and that, if he wanted to respond, they would contact this medium. The answer did not come.
NEGOTIATION WITH NEIGHBORHOOD 18 AND DEMANDS
In September last year, El Far published an investigation in which it was revealed that the Bukele Government was holding negotiations with the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS13) to reduce homicide figures since June 2019 and to obtain electoral support for the February 2021 elections, in which the president won the presidency.
In this new text, the digital newspaper states that these negotiations also included the Barrio 18 gang -Southern and revolutionary factions- and indicates that the gangs “raised a series of demands that include improvements in prison living conditions and benefits for to its members in freedom “.
There are 19 demands that “refer to the life (of the gang members) inside the prisons and the rest are requests to improve the lives of the gang members in freedom and their families,” he adds.
Last year, Bukele said the lighthouse investigation was “false” and noted that his government is criticized, even by international bodies, for measures implemented in prisons, such as sealing cells with metal plates to keep them isolated after 1am escalation of homicides between April and May 2020.
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