2023-06-14 00:06:01
SAN SALVADOR (AP) — The El Salvador Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on Monday the file of 142 deaths of prisoners who were in state custody and who were detained in the framework of President Nayib Bukele’s heavy-handed policy once morest gangs.
According to the thesis of the Public Ministry, the inmates died of natural causes. The non-governmental organization Cristosal had recently denounced that at least 153 people detained in El Salvador died in state custody during the state of emergency in force in the country since March 27, 2022.
“We have filed 142 cases that do not constitute a crime according to the investigations. We have scientifically verified with the help of the Institute of Legal Medicine the causes of deaths, some were due to pre-existing illnesses, others were some kind of illness,” said the attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado, in an interview program on local television.
Of the 153 victims, four are women and the rest are men. According to the Cristosal report, none of the deceased had been found guilty of the crime that was attributed to them when they were arrested. Of the total number of deaths, 139 occurred in the first year of the emergency regime.
Prosecutor Delgado decalcified the report of the human rights organization, which also reveals that the deaths of the detainees were the result of torture and serious and systematic injuries. Almost half of the deceased were victims of violent deaths, according to the complaint.
“The data from the NGO is not correct, it has not been provided by official institutions, in this case Legal Medicine, but rather indicates some type of doctors and has been collected by different sources without a scientific manner,” Delgado reneged.
The attorney general assured that, to try to magnify the statistics of deaths, they have included people who died within the penitentiary system before the entry into force of the measure decreed by Congress to combat gangs.
The state of exception approved by the unicameral Congress, following a day with 62 murders, suspends constitutional rights, among them, the right of a person to be duly informed of their rights and the charges of their arrest, as well as the right to count with the assistance of a lawyer.
In addition, it extends the detention from 72 hours to 15 days and allows the authorities to intervene in the correspondence and cell phones of those who identify suspects. Since then, arrests on charges of illicit association have increased considerably, since the right of assembly is restricted.
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