El Salvador Perspectives

The former Attorney General of El Salvador, Luis Martinez, has been freed on $5000 bail pending his tiral on charges that he had illegally divulged intercepted communications of Father Antonio Rodriguez (Padre Toño) .   Martinez had previously received the right to release on bail for charges that he had engaged in a corrupt conspiracy to use his office to benefit businessman Enrique Rais. Many anti-corruption crusaders were indignant, but because I come from a country where bail for criminal defendants is common, I don't have a problem with the decision (although maybe the bail should be higher than $5000).    Still, the decision to free Martinez stood in stark contrast to the detention of Wendy Morales, a young actress and human rights activist, who is being held in provisional detention without bail in a case of extortion, where the only link between Wendy and the crime is that a cell phone that was stolen from her had links to the extortion calls.   ...

A tangled story of corruption in the attorney general’s office in El Salvador is playing out in El Salvador’s courts.  El Salvador’s former attorney general, Luis Martinez  was  arrested on August 22, 2015 .    Here is a brief summary of this complicated web of corruption: Luis Martinez in custody Luis Martinez was arrested along with Salvadoran businessman Enrique Rais.   Rais has a number of business interests including the operation of El Salvador’s largest landfill.   The allegations against Martinez and Rais involve prosecutorial and judicial corruption in which Martinez accepted favors from Rais in return for protecting El Salvador’s king of solid waste.   Many of the dealings between Rais and Martinez had been previously  described in reporting by investigative journalist Hector Silva Avalos who publishes the online journalism site RevistaFactum. The allegations against Rais and Martinez involve Ma...

When Spanish priest Father Antonio Rodriguez (Padre Toño) pled guilty to influence peddling and bringing contraband into prisons one month ago today, it surprised many of his followers.  The plea, in return for a suspended sentence, was yet another strange turn in the so-called "truce" begun in 2012 with El Salvador's notorious gangs. The prosecution of Padre Toño was based on a set of intercepted telephone calls between the priest and imprisoned leaders of the Barrio 18 gang.   The online periodical El Faro obtained a set of those recording from a government source and published a set of some of the recordings .  In the accompanying article , El Faro discusses a number of the revelations in the recordings including discussions between the priest and gang leaders about getting them cell phones and reducing the level of cell phone signal blocking being used at the prison.  El Faro also reveals that the prosecutors had certain recordings of "intimate conversati...

The Spanish priest known as Padre Toño was found guilty today of bringing contraband into prisons as part of a plea agreement with Salvadoran authorities.   The country's attorney general has been prosecuting the priest for alleged collaboration with the country's powerful street gangs. Fox News Latino :has the details of today's developments: A Spanish priest who pleaded guilty to aiding gang members in El Salvador was sentenced Thursday to 2 1/2 years in prison, but will not have to spend any time behind bars, a Salvadoran judicial spokesperson told Efe.  "As the sentence is less than three years, it was changed to substitute measures," the spokesman said.  The Rev. Antonio Rodriguez, a parish priest in Mejicanos, near San Salvador, was arrested July 29 on charges that he smuggled banned items to jailed gang members.  Attorney General Luis Martinez said last weekend that the priest had agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with authorities. ...

In Spain, they are waiting anxiously for progress on the case of Spanish priest Fr. Antonio Rodriguez (Padre Toño), arrested in El Salvador for alleged complicity with the gangs.   The periodical El Pais has the stor y:: Father Toño has been accused of bringing prohibited objects such as cellphones into prisons and of having direct ties to various Mara leaders. Both investigations are in the preliminary stages. It could take up to six months for the authorities to make a decision. On Friday, Father Toño was transferred to a prison under the supervision of the Salvadoran police’s narcotics division after spending a week in hospital with low blood pressure. His lawyers intend to appeal the judge’s decision and the Spanish Foreign Affairs Ministry said it was keeping up with the case, though declined to share any details.  [Father Toño's sister] Cristina has taken two trips to El Salvador to see her brother. She said Father Toño set up workshops, clinics equipped with machin...

Last week three judges were arrested in San Miguel, following arrests of lawyers, police, and other officials a few weeks earlier in San Miguel.   InsightCrime looks at these latest arrests in an article titled  El Salvador Anti-Mafia Judges Arrested For Ties to Organized Crime : Authorities in El Salvador have arrested three anti-mafia judges accused of accepting bribes from organized crime groups, highlighting the corruption that plagues the country's judicial system and allows impunity to flourish.  On August 12, Salvadoran authorities detained three judges from the eastern city of San Miguel who are accused of taking money in exchange for favoring criminal defendants, reported El Diario de Hoy . The Attorney General's Office identified the judges as part of a network that includes lawyers, prosecutors, police, and court employees.  The arrests came after 15 judges from the country's Constitutional Chamber approved the removal of the judicial immunity affo...

After less than a half day of freedom earlier this week, Padre Toño, the Spanish priest known for his work with gang members in his parish in Mejicanos outside of San Salvador ended up back in detention.  The Salvadoran prosecutors added new, more detailed charges, and persuaded a judge to return the cleric to provisional detention.   From the  National Catholic Reporter : A Salvadoran judge ruled that Spanish Passionist Fr. Antonio Rodriguez, known for his work in rehabilitating gang members, should remain in jail, accused of various crimes regarding gang activities.  Rodriguez, known as Padre Tono, was arrested July 29 and charged with several offenses, including illicit associations, influence peddling and introducing prohibited items -- including cellphones -- into prisons where members of the Barrio 18 or Calle 18 gang are held. He was arrested in connection with a huge police raid against 127 gang members on charges of extortion, among other crimes....

The arrest of Spanish priest Father Antonio Rodriguez in El Salvador, better known as Padre Toño, has prompted surprise and protests, spreading all the way to Spain. The charges against Padre Toño are illicit associations, influence peddling, and bringing contraband to persons in prison.  At a hearing on Friday, the prosecutors detailed their charges : The Prosecutor's Office say the priest had been under investigation since March 2013.  "After monitoring his phone calls, we gathered evidence of his links with the leader of the 18th street gang, Carlos Ernesto Mojica Lechuga, who is in jail" said prosecutor Allan Hernandez.  "He was doing whatever Mojica Lechuga asked him to do," Mr Hernandez added. Prosecutors say the priest successfully intervened to have a gang member transferred to a different jail at the request of Mojica Lechuga.  He has also been accused of smuggling mobile phones and other objects to gang members in prison. One of the phon...

Yesterday, the headline on the respected website InsightCrime read " New El Salvador Government Yet to Take Action as Homicides Rocket ."  The post concluded: The new government is now faced with a conundrum: do they allow the broken initiative [the gang truce] to linger on, or officially announce it's over? So far, their answer has been muddled, although the signs are not positive for truce supporters. In June, the president claimed the country would "not make a truce with organized crime," but Security Minister Benito Lara more recently told El Faro the government would not stand in the way of any gang negotiations.   While Sanchez Ceren has announced the existence of a new security strategy, he is now nearly two months into his term without detailing any concrete actions to be taken. With the murder rate now reaching pre-truce levels, it is critical the government develop a plan for the post-truce era quickly or it may be drawn into a reactive security p...