August 6, 2021
Comité de Familiares de Presas y Presos Políticos de El Salvador (COFAPPES) at protest outside of the women’s prison to denounce detention of political prisoners
Prepared by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)
What happened?
On July 22, Salvadoran police illegally detained five former government officials from the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) party and announced the intention of detaining five others. Arrest warrants were not issued by a judge prior to the arrests and it wasn’t until a press conference following the illegal detentions on July 22, that detainees and their lawyers were made aware of the Attorney General’s intention to charge them with “embezzlement and money laundering.”
At a preliminary hearing on July 28, the judge of the Second Justice of the Peace of El Salvador ordered the five detainees to 6 months of pre-trial detention and issued formal arrest warrants for five others, including former president Salvador Sánchez Cerén. Prisoners have been transferred to La Esperanza penal center, known as Mariona, and the Women’s Prison in Ilopango while their lawyers await instructions on the appeals process. Excessive pre-trial detention is a common and unfortunate occurrence in El Salvador’s judicial process as it violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) with regard to the presumption of innocence. (Click here to download a PDF of this resource.)
Recent Comments