El Salvador: Stuck in Cecot, one of the world’s toughest jails despite judges’ orders

If he’s nonetheless alive, José Duval Mata is trapped in a dwelling nightmare.

For greater than two years, the 26-year-old tractor driver has been in jail in El Salvador, accused of “gang affiliation”, although the nation’s authorized system has twice ordered his fast launch.

Regardless of two judges’ clearly worded choices in his favour, Mr Mata nonetheless languishes inside one of many hardest prisons on the earth: El Salvador’s infamous Cecot, a super-max facility for the “confinement of terrorists”.

The BBC has repeatedly introduced the case to the eye of the Salvadorean authorities – together with on to the general public prosecutor’s workplace, the safety ministry, the vice-president, and President Nayib Bukele himself earlier this 12 months.

Regardless of a number of assurances the authorities would examine, no motion has been taken thus far.

It’s a story of Kafkaesque proportions.

In April 2022, Mr Mata was on his means house within the dusty rural group of La Noria when he was stopped by troops who had entered his village as a part of President Bukele’s nationwide crackdown on the nation’s highly effective road gangs.

With a raft of constitutional rights suspended underneath an emergency decree known as the State of Exception, police and troops can detain anybody suspected of gang affiliation with out due authorized course of.

Round 70,000 individuals have been arrested in two years together with some 3,000 youngsters, many with no discernible hyperlink to gang exercise, says the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch.

Regardless of Mr Mata’s protestations that he had by no means been in or labored for a gang, the troops detained him for “illicit affiliation” – a catch-all time period used underneath the State of Exception to spherical individuals up.

His mom, Marcela Alvarado, hasn’t seen or heard from her son since that day.

“The police instructed me I wanted to convey proof to show his innocence, so I gathered up his highschool diploma, the deeds to his land, his compensation receipts on his financial institution mortgage, a declaration from his employer as to his good character,” she explains, exhibiting the BBC the paperwork, which consultants say virtually no Salvadorean gang member would possess.

Her efforts had been in useless.

José Duval was tried alongside greater than 350 different inmates in a mass trial which lasted simply minutes. He was sentenced to an preliminary six months, which has since been prolonged indefinitely.

Marcela nonetheless cries on the reminiscence. However issues had been about to get far worse.

José Duval was briefly freed after a choose ordered his fast launch in September 2022.

Nevertheless, he was then rearrested on the doorways of the jail – on the identical prices – as he waited for his household to return and choose him up.

Rearrests of prisoners on the jail gates “are arbitrary actions… unlawful detentions and instances of double jeopardy,” says Noah Bullock, the chief director of El Salvador’s main human rights NGO, Cristosal.

However, he says, the follow has been widespread underneath the State of Exception.

In June 2023, a second choose confirmed the sooner determination to free Mr Mata. But, greater than a 12 months later, he stays behind bars and Marcela’s more and more determined requests for data have fallen on deaf ears.

José Duval’s household has now lodged his case with the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights.

A supply contained in the Salvadorean public prosecutor’s workplace has instructed the BBC they might see “no authorized justification or any clear clarification” for the younger man’s continued detention.

All through the ordeal, Marcela faithfully took a meals parcel every week to the Izalco jail the place her son was housed – a plastic bag full of “cornflakes, oatmeal, bread and cookies”, she stated, to assist maintain José Duval past his meagre jail rations.

When she delivered a meals bag in June of final 12 months, guards instructed her that he had been transferred from the penitentiary some weeks earlier.

Her worst fears had been realised.

José Duval was now contained in the Cecot – the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism – a maximum-security jail which is the cornerstone of Mr Bukele’s anti-gang coverage.

Mr Bukele’s supporters hail the power as proof of his iron fist on gang crime.

Its critics think about it a black gap of human rights and one of many harshest prisons on the earth.

President Bukele has typically stated the inmates won’t see “a ray of sunshine” and obtain essentially the most fundamental rations of chilly rice and tortillas.

Photos of shaven-headed and closely tattooed inmates being transferred into the power had been extensively revealed by the Bukele authorities.

Mr Bukele has repeatedly defended the State of Exception and the Cecot for altering the face of safety in El Salvador.

Quite a few “no-go” areas and gang-controlled neighbourhoods are certainly again underneath the management of the safety forces, and full communities say they now not reside in worry.

As such, the crackdown is vastly standard. Thousands and thousands in El Salvador are eternally grateful to their younger, media-savvy chief for tackling the gang downside with swift and ruthless power.

In February, President Nayib Bukele was re-elected in a landslide, securing round 90% of the vote.

At a information convention, I requested him if in his second time period he would deal with releasing those that had been unjustly detained.

President Bukele launched into a protracted reply attacking his critics, significantly these from overseas, arguing that there had been high-profile miscarriages of justice in the UK.

His safety forces had solely made, he stated, “a few errors” and a few 7,000 individuals had already been launched.

The crackdown had restored calm to El Salvador’s streets and that was a very powerful factor, he insisted.

I instructed him specifics about José Duval Mata’s case and, following the information convention, his crew requested me for copies of the judges’ launch orders. A couple of days later, a member of his inside circle requested the data a second time, this time in digital format, which I once more supplied to them.

Over the next weeks, the BBC repeatedly chased up the Bukele administration and I’ve spoken on to the vice-president, Félix Ulloa, on a number of events in regards to the case.

Over a 12 months in the past, he instructed the BBC that Mr Mata was simply days away from being let loose.

Mr Ulloa stated he hoped that, as soon as out of jail, the media would painting José Duval Mata as an “emblematic case of due course of”.

In actual fact, at that time, he was being transferred to the Cecot with out his household’s information.

Earlier this 12 months, after months of requests, the BBC did acquire entry to the Cecot however we weren’t permitted to talk to the inmates or ask officers about particular instances.

In the meantime, Marcela has had no proof of life or formal affirmation of her son’s welfare in over two years. Unsurprisingly, it has typically crossed her thoughts that José Duval may need died in jail.

“I used to consider it continuous”, she tells me from her tiny patch of land in La Noria. “I used to be obsessive about the concept, I felt fully determined. All I’d do is cry.”

Now, she says, she’s simply clinging to the hope that her son continues to be alive and can finally be launched.

“I’m putting my belief in God. It’s all I can do.”