The announcement

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said on Tuesday, 13 October, that his government is working on a plan that would benefit more or less half of the prisoners held for collaborating with gangs. He made the remarks at a press conference in San Salvador called to announce an energy investment agreement with the Spanish group Cox. Under the proposal, prisoners would still be considered guilty but could leave early on conditional release, under monitoring. Bukele said the government is setting 'a criterion' for the 'level of collaboration', weighing the context in which gangs held daily power over the population.

We have a plan that would benefit more or less 50% of the prisoners in El Salvador who have collaborated with gangs, with an early release.

To illustrate the gradations, he said that someone who helped bury a body would deserve far more punishment than someone who only warned others of a police approach.

If he helped bury a body, he almost deserves a life sentence.

Context of the crackdown

The state of exception has been in force since March 2022, when Bukele declared it to fight gang violence. It suspends constitutional guarantees, and authorities can detain suspects without an arrest warrant. Reported totals of detainees run from more than 92,000 to at least 93,162, depending on the source. Crime has fallen to a record low since the campaign began, but NGOs and a UN expert group say the crackdown has led to human rights violations. Socorro Jurídico says at least 30,000 innocent people have been jailed, and rights bodies have documented more than 500 deaths in state custody. Officials say about 8,000 people who proved innocent have been released so far, which cabinet officials have described as part of a 'margin of error' in the regime.

The commission question

A journalist pressed Bukele about posts that his brother Ibrajim Bukele published on X in April. Those posts described an 'independent commission' that reviews detention cases. Ibrajim Bukele said the body works with the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Justice and the prison authority, with participation from the office of the first lady. According to El País, the president said the body is not the judges or Attorney General's office that the constitution provides for, but a kind of 'third form' of justice. Bukele defended the idea of the review by saying:

We have no intention of keeping any person in prison who is not guilty.

Abraham Abrego, legal director of the NGO Cristosal, who works from exile, told AFP that reviewing the cases of innocent detainees has been a repeated demand of rights groups. He warned that determining guilt belongs to the justice system rather than the executive, and he questioned the label 'gang collaborators' for the possible beneficiaries instead of acknowledging that innocent people are in prison.

What remains unclear

Bukele did not say when the early release would begin, how long the review would take, or which criteria and legal basis would apply. Ibrajim Bukele had said cases arrive every day, but did not explain the mechanism. The announcement followed a call from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to the State Department, about countering malign foreign influence in the region. Bukele controls almost all state powers and is seeking a third term in the February elections.