El Salvador handed over to the United States authorities two Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang members required by that country to be tried for various crimes, the US embassy reported on Wednesday.
The diplomatic headquarters published photographs of the gang members as they boarded the plane that took them to the United States and said that it hopes that the joint work in the fight against transnational crime will continue to bear fruit.
For his part, the Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States, Brian A. Nichols, thanked the Salvadoran government on Twitter “for the step that these extraditions represent. This is the result of collaboration in the fight against transnational crime and in the search to bring justice to the victims and their families”.
The MS-13 gang members were identified as Edwin Mauricio Rodriguez Morales, alias “Manicomio,” and José Jonathan Guevara Castro, alias “Suspect” or “Midnight.”
Rodríguez Morales is required by US justice to answer for the crimes of participation and conspiracy in the murder of four people and organized crime.
Guevara Castro will be tried for the crimes of homicide, organized crime, conspiracy and drug trafficking.
The extradition of the gang members was approved on July 12 by the Supreme Court of Justice.
The United States has asked El Salvador for the immediate extradition of at least 14 leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha to prosecute them for crimes committed in that country.
In 2012, the United States government included the Mara Salvatrucha on a list of international criminal organizations and three years later the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador declared it a terrorist along with the Barrio 18 gang.
In March, the Salvadoran Congress reformed the Penal Code so that gangs or any criminal organization are considered criminally illicit and their members can be punished with 20 to 40 years in prison. The leaders of these groups could receive sentences of 40 to 45 years in prison.
The so-called maras or gangs, which have an estimated 70,000 members, have a presence in populous neighborhoods and communities in El Salvador and are involved in drug trafficking and organized crime, extort money from merchants and transportation companies, and murder those who refuse to pay, according to the authorities.
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