Venezuela is investigating El Salvador’s President Bukele and top officials over the alleged torture of 252 migrants deported from the US
Venezuela’s attorney general’s office said on Monday that it has opened an investigation into El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele for alleged mistreatment and human rights violations against Venezuelan migrants.
The Venezuelan government presented photos and testimonies of some of the men, who said they were beaten, sexually abused and fed rotten food while inside a Salvodoran prison
The migrants in question spent months detained in a maximum-security prison in the Central American country after being deported by the United States.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab said his office decided to open the probe after some of the migrants informed Venezuelan authorities of the alleged mistreatment.
The investigation includes El Salvador’s Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro and the head of the prison system, Osiris Luna.
In a video circulating online, there were allegations from Venezuelan migrants rescued from El Salvador, moments before disembarking from the plane upon their return to Venezuela: “Beatings for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (…) Each day they treated us worse, they humiliated us!”
More than 250 migrants were held since March in a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which was built to hold alleged gang members in Bukele’s war on the country’s gangs.
They were released on Friday by El Salvador in exchange for 10 U.S. nationals jailed in Venezuela, and as part of a three-country arrangement.
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