El Salvador prosecutors aim for multi‑thousand‑year sentences for MS‑13 leaders

Prosecutors in El Salvador said they expect senior members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS‑13) gang to receive sentences amounting to thousands of years in a mass trial that began in April. The case targets 485 alleged gang members, including the 22 individuals comprising the so‑called “historical ringleader” command structure.

The defendants face roughly 47,000 charges for crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, among them the 87 murders in March 2022 that led President Nayib Bukele to declare a state of emergency and detain about 92,000 people. One accused, Borromeo Henríquez (“Diablito de Hollywood”), already serving an 87‑year term, could be sentenced to an additional 15,000–25,000 years.

Prosecutor Max Muñoz warned that the penalties would keep the gang leaders in prison for the rest of their lives, noting “they don’t have ten lives to serve these sentences.” The trial is described as the first mass prosecution of a gang command hierarchy in the country, while human‑rights groups continue to criticize the broader security crackdown.