A head of the Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13, was sentenced to 1,090 years in prison for a court in El Salvador, for aggravated homicide in connection with 24 deaths, including the murders of a police officer and the son of a journalist.
César Alfredo Romero Chávez, alias ‘El Solo Tecla’, is the gang member who received his sentence, and according to the Attorney General of the Republic of that country, he was the leader of the group ‘Libertad’ of the MS- 13.
The agency also specified that the murders of the police agent and the son of journalist Henry Arana occurred in the area of the Department of La Libertad in the year 2017.
In addition to the sentence against Romero Chávez, other 93 gang members were sentenced , receiving sentences ranging from three years and six months in prison, to 500 years.
According to the agency, the leader of the group ‘ Freedom of the MS-13, identified as César Alfredo Romero Chávez, alias ‘El Solo Tecla’, received a sentence of 1,24 years in prison for aggravated homicide in relation to the deaths of 24 persons that occurred between 2017 and 2018, including the of the policeman and the son of Arana.
These lengthy sentences were given one day after the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced that he would increase the “war” against the gangs after three police officers died in an ambush.
“This is not going to stay like this and they are going to pay dearly for the murder of these three heroes“, Bukele told the media, blaming the police for what happened. Barrio gang 18, of the so-called Sureños faction.
“The gang members are fools, because we are not going to back down. We are going to intensify this war against the gangs. Now they are going to see, really, what it means to unleash this security force”, assured the president.