The judge reasoned that the Prosecutor’s Office should also investigate the linking of FMLN leaders and gang leaders in the context of the 2015 San Salvador City Hall elections. He also asks that former Republic presidents, former ministers, mayors, directors of the PNC, pastors, a diplomat among others.
The Special Judge of Judgment of San Salvador, Godofredo Salazar Torres, reasoned yesterday in his written sentence of the judicial process of the “Operation Cuscatlán“, The obligation on the part of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic to” verify the existence of approaches of the MS gang with the current government cabinet, “directed by President Nayib Armando Bukele.
The decision does not specify the names of officials; however, in another investigation, the Jaque operation, the negotiation between politicians and gang members. It establishes meetings of the current Minister of the Interior, Mario Durán, and the director of Tejido Social, Carlos Marroquín, with leaders of the MS gang in December 2015.
Durán and Marroquín held that meeting as officials of the mayor of San Salvador, at that time under the baton of Nayib Bukele.
The judge established on page 936 of the verdict, that the Public Prosecutor’s Office must also review the link between the FMLN and gang members, in the context of the 2015 electoral process, specifically for the mayor of San Salvador, in which triumph Bukele with the FMLN flag, since officials of that political party were in negotiation with the Maras leaders.
“In a profuse way, the scope of the participation of FMLN party members, such as Mr. José Luis Merino and Medardo González Trejo, should be investigated, the latter in his capacity as Secretary General of that political party in the period subject to investigation,” he argued. the judge
In another section, on page 571, the judge also detailed the possible criminal involvement in a procedural fraud by the current capital mayor, Ernesto Muyshondt, as one of the politicians who appear in the evidence presented by the Prosecutor in the process.
“The tax agency before such findings must conduct an immediate investigation to deduce the commission of criminal acts such as electoral fraud, having knowledge of events such as the one under study in the present case, as the legitimacy of the post-2012 election processes and even the recent event of suffrage, they are clearly compromised by the interference of organized crime through gangs in the election of the voter … and in case of being imputable should have prevented him from participating in democratic exercises in times of 2018 and following; because the legitimacy of the scrutiny in which he was “winner” and the position he currently holds ”would be seriously compromised, he declared on the mayor.
The judge points out that, according to the investigation, “the existence of a gang gangster and political gangsters who deliberately make associations with organized crime groups, to achieve the political purposes of the moment and rise in public positions in a way illegal and systematic ”.
The Cuscatlán operation was one of the most extensive investigations that the Prosecutor’s Office conducted since 2017, where it included the leaders of the MS and the negotiations they conducted with politicians of the FMLN, ARENA parties and a GANA mayor’s office, to obtain the votes of the gang members and their families, and thus win the electoral processes for mayors and deputies of 2015.
However, after extensive investigation, the Prosecutor’s Office only accused 425 gang members for terrorist organizations, aggravated homicide, among other crimes, and set aside the accusation against officials and politicians who would have committed crimes in negotiations with criminals when delivering money and meet with gang members.
On December 12, Judge Salazar sentenced 373 MS gang members and collaborators to sentences between 4 and 74 years in jail. But until yesterday he delivered the document of the sentence in writing to the Prosecutor and the lawyers.
A short investigation with a lot of evidence against politicians
The judge’s ruling coincides with the recent accusation by the Prosecutor’s Office against the former Ministers of the Interior of the FMLN, Arístides Valencia, and that of Justice and Security, Benito Lara; as well as against the mayor of San Salvador, Ernesto Muyshondt; the ex-mediator of the truce between gangs, Raúl Mijango; the columnist Paolo Lüers and the former representative of the Nahual Foundation, Wilson Alvarado. All of them were prosecuted yesterday during the initial hearing in the Second Peace Court of San Salvador.
In the extensive sentence of 1,015 pages, Judge Salazar corrected the flat to the Prosecutor’s Office and ordered him to investigate more involved, including five more officials of that time, police directors, mayors, citizens and even an ambassador from Germany.
In the case of the aforementioned diplomat, the judge maintains that he participated in several meetings with gang members during his tenure.
“It should be investigated if their function in those meetings was authorized by the country that accredited them, the degrees of collaboration or contribution they had, if the Embassy officially and, consequently, the country they represented performed some type of intervention on those issues or yes, on the contrary, he attended to a personal agenda, separated from his functions, but in sum he could give rise to the materialization, financing or contribution of criminal acts by the gang with whom he met, ”says the judge.
Notice possible responsibility of former presidents
In the document, Judge Salazar establishes that the Prosecutor’s Office must individualize the responsibilities incurred by former presidents Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena and Salvador Sánchez Cerén, former Minister of Defense, David Victoriano Munguía Payés.
“It is also requested to investigate the members of the ARENA party, Jorge Velado, Ernesto Angulo; to the members of the network of pastors; the municipalities of Sonsonate, La Libertad, Ilopango, San Salvador, Cuscatancingo, Santa Tecla, Usulután, San Marcos, Soyapango and Apopa, which were related in this case, the governing bodies of the political parties, army officers and the action of the holders of the public prosecutor’s office in case of omissions to the duty to investigate what happened, ”continues the judge’s letter.
The ruling also mentions the participation of members of the GANA party with gang members, for example, the municipality of Pandillas, Usulután, where money deliveries and even concessions were made in the administration of municipal markets.
In addition, he questioned the role assumed by members of the clergy and the network of pastors, who served as interlocutors lending their facilities for conducting meetings where acts of corruption were discussed.
For Salazar Torres, his ruling is a call to the Prosecutor’s Office to “assume with responsibility the legal commitment to immediately investigate the events reported in this judgment.”
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