El Salvador passes law allowing life imprisonment for minors convicted of murder, rape, or terrorism, extending President Bukele’s controversial anti-gang crackdown.
SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador’s legislative assembly has approved a bill allowing courts to sentence minors to life imprisonment for crimes including murder, rape, and terrorism.
The move extends President Nayib Bukele’s sweeping anti-gang crackdown to include offenders under the age of 18.
The new law follows a recent constitutional reform that permitted life terms for adult “murderers, rapists and terrorists,” where the previous maximum sentence was 60 years.
Bukele had specifically pushed for the harsher penalty to apply to children, irrespective of gang affiliation.
“We have given Salvadoran families the reassurance that none of these criminals will ever see the light of day again,” said assembly president Ernesto Castro, a member of the ruling party.
The policy is part of a state of emergency declared in 2022, under which more than 90,000 people have been arrested, often without warrants on suspicion of gang links.
Around 8,000 of those detained have since been released after being found innocent.
A particularly contentious rule allows anyone accused of gang ties to be sent to adult prisons, a policy that applies to minors under the new legislation.
While the crackdown has driven homicide rates to historic lows, it has prompted widespread accusations of human rights abuses.
Opposition deputy Francisco Lira lamented that “thousands” of Salvadorans are still “waiting for a fair trial” and that “good people are paying for something they did not do.”
Ahead of the vote, Lira held up a sign in the assembly reading: “In favor of the penalty, but without twisting the Constitution.”
