SAN SALVADOR — Prosecutors in El Salvador opened a consolidated trial on Monday in San Salvador against 486 alleged members of the MS-13 gang on charges including homicide, extortion and arms trafficking. The charges also include femicide and enforced disappearances, with the defendants accused of ordering more than 47,000 crimes from 2012 to 2022.

The gang leaders are being tried in an open hearing at an Organized Crime Court created under a 2023 reform of El Salvador's penal code. Of the defendants, 413 are being held at the Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison that President Nayib Bukele ordered built, and many watched the proceedings virtually from the prison. Another 73 alleged gang members are being prosecuted in absentia as permitted by law, according to the Attorney General's office. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said on social media: "For years, this structure has operated systematically, causing fear and mourning among Salvadoran families."

The trial is the latest in a series of collective prosecutions. In March 2025, 52 members of the Barrio 18 gang were sentenced to prison in the first collective trial, with the longest sentence amounting to 245 years. In November 2025, a court found 45 members of the Barrio 18 Sureños faction guilty of several crimes and imposed a 397-year prison sentence on one leader.

El Salvador has been under a state of emergency for four years to fight organized crime. The state of exception has been in effect since March 2022, suspending fundamental rights including the right to be informed of the reasons for detention and the right to legal counsel. Under the measure, security forces can intercept telecommunications without a court order and extend detention without a preliminary hearing from 72 hours to 15 days.

Authorities say they have arrested 91,300 people allegedly belonging or tied to gangs since the state of emergency began. Bukele has acknowledged that at least 8,000 innocent people were arrested under the measure and have since been released. At least 500 people have died in state custody during that period, and human rights organizations have registered more than 6,000 complaints filed by victims. El Salvador once had one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with 103 killings per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015.

Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director for Human Rights Watch, said: "These mass trials lack basic guarantees of due process and thus they increase the risk of convicting innocent people who have nothing to do with the gangs that have terrorized the country for decades."

Irene Cuéllar, researcher for Central America at Amnesty International, said: "Mass trials raise serious questions about compliance with due process guarantees, including the right to an individualized defense, the presumption of innocence and access to adequate legal representation."