Shackled and shaved: El Salvador holds mass trial for hundreds of gang members

President Nayib Bukele – the self-described ‘world’s coolest dictator’ – publicises the largest mass trial yet of his gang crackdown

Hundreds of alleged Mara Salvatrucha gang members sat chained, shaved and mute as they were accused of murder and torture during a mass trial at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT jail on Thursday.

Seated in neat columns of plastic chairs in the prison’s main hall, some 220 defendants were accused of collectively carrying out more than 29,000 murders.

“We burned her genitals and buttocks” one witness said over the loudspeaker, testifying in a mass trial El Salvador’s president has compared to those of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg.

Among those on trial were about 20 alleged leaders and dozens of lieutenants, many with tattooed faces, heads, hands, and necks.

Some stared at journalists. All were dressed in white T-shirts and shorts.