Jul
Human Rights, Politics
Pre-trial detention for FMLN members
ELSALVADOR.COM reports:
The Second Magistrate’s court of San Salvador ordered today that five former FMLN officials remain in jail while the judicial process against them reaches the investigation stage.
From the moment of the arrests, leaders of the FMLN have questioned the process followed by the authorities and the Prosecutor’s Office regarding the arrests of the officials. They describe them as arbitrary acts and said that the detainees are political prisoners of the government of Nayib Bukele, while demanding their immediate release.
In the meantime, the Minister of Security, Gustavo Villatoro, defended a proposal to reform the Penal Code that seeks retroactivity and prosecution of past corruption under the argument that this can be prosecuted because they are “crimes of public order”.
Villatoro said during a Channel 12 interview that non-imprescriptibility can occur when crimes are of public order. “There are exceptions,” the minister said.
However, Eduardo Escobar from Acción Ciudadana, who participated in another interview, pointed out that the reform proposal of the Minister of Security and Bukele is unconstitutional and cannot be applied.
“To include acts of the past, there are a series of norms and provisions in the Constitution that would contradict the reform. It can only be retroactive if it is criminal and benefits the defendant”, he explained.
In Escobar’s analysis, “public order” cannot be applied retroactively, and it would be the Supreme Court of Justice who should decide, “but there is a Court controlled by the Executive (Bukele)”.
“If there was an intention to investigate corruption, all the cases pointed out by the CICIES would be investigated”.
Villatoro assured that they will continue with the law-making process in the Legislative Assembly so that the imprescriptibility of corruption crimes is approved.
