Justice of El Salvador denies extradition to the US of 4 leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha

SAN SALVADOR – The first four leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha gang requested by the United States in extradition who have been tried in El Salvador must serve sentences in the Central American country before being extradited, ruled the magistrates of the Salvadoran Supreme Court of Justice.

The US requests the extradition of 27 gang leaders.

In the cases of the first four that have been tried in El Salvador, Eliú Melgar Díaz, alias “Blue”; Hugo Armando Quinteros Mineros, alias “Flaco de Francis”; Efraín Cortez, alias “Tigre de Parkview”, and recently Eduardo Nolasco, alias “Colocho de Western”, the judges have refused to extradite them because they still have pending debts with justice in El Salvador or because their extradition requires “further constitutional analysis”. .

In the case of Eliú Melgar Díaz, alias “Blue”, the magistrates refused to extradite him on the grounds that there were no “guarantees of compliance with his rights.” He was later sentenced in the Central American country to 39 years in prison. Díaz was the first gang leader to be denied extradition, reported the local media The printing presswhat has consigned since 2021 the resolutions of the Salvadoran Court on the subject.

In March 2023, Hugo Armando Quinteros Mineros, alias “Flaco de Francis”, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in El Salvador one day before the deadline to be extradited to the US. The Court reaffirmed that the leader of the MS13 must pay that sentence first.

Two months later, Efraín Cortez, alias “Tigre de Parkview”, was denied extradition with four days to go until the expiration of the deadline. The Full Court of El Salvador blocked the extradition on the grounds that he has pending legal proceedings in El Savior.

The last of the leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha denied in extradition was Eduardo Erasmo Nolasco, alias “Colocho de Western”. On June 15, Salvadoran magistrates decided that he must pay a 30-year prison sentence before being sent to the US.

Of the four leaders denied in extradition so far, three are members of the Ranfla Nacional of the Mara Salvatrucha, that is, they are founding leaders of the gang.

In the early 2000s, founders of the MS13 who were deported from the US organized in the Salvadoran jails where they were held. “The organization included the creation of a formal hierarchy, a set of rules, and a leadership body to control and profit from gang activities in El Salvador, the United States, and elsewhere,” explained the first accusation of the Attorney General’s Office for the Eastern District of New York against 14 founding members.

The first name that the Mara Salvatrucha gave to its group of leaders was “Twelve Apostles of the Devil”. They were later renamed “National Ranfla” which is the highest level of leadership of the MS13.

Why does the United States want to judge them?

The Attorney for the Eastern District of New York accused 14 members of the National Ranfla of the Mara Salvatrucha of terrorism in 2021.

According to the act, the gang leaders are charged with conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism that transcend national borders, conspiracy to finance terrorism, and narco-terrorism conspiracy in connection with the direction of the accused of the transnational criminal organization during the last two decades in El Salvador, the United States, Mexico and elsewhere.

At the time, former Attorney General Jeffrey Adam Rosen called the indictment filed “the broadest and most far-reaching in US history against MS-13 and its command and control structure.”

In September 2022 another was presented accusation against 13 more members, who although they are not founders of the MS13, but had leadership within the gang.

The extradition deadlines for the rest of the gang leaders will get closer in the following months.

President Nayib Bukele, who has removed gang members from the neighborhoods and carries out an emergency regime in the country for that purpose, has not ruled on the magistrates’ brake on the extradition of the leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha.

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