Podcast: For a Portrait of Bukele, Look to His Prisons
Salvadoran prisons are black boxes where reports of systematic torture have emerged, disease proliferates and medical care is denied, and at least 375 people have died in custody. They are a focal point of corruption, from the top brass to rank and file, and were the stage of Bukele’s pact with gangs — the collapse of which led to the state of exception.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Roman Gressier
The following is a transcript of episode 24 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.
TOCZYLOWSKI: In that moment, they said he was removed to El Salvador. The immigration judge said, how is it possible that he was removed if there’s no removal order? And the ICE attorney that was in the courtroom said, “I don’t know.”
GRESSIER: Two weeks ago, Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, told MSNBC that her client Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker and makeup artist, had been summarily deported to El Salvador without due process. As The New Yorker reported on Monday, their supposed evidence of his belonging to Tren de Aragua? Two little crown tattoos with the words “Dad” and “Mom”.
Today we’re changing gears. Usually, we report multiple big stories a week. Now, on the first Friday of every month, we will expand our podcast reporting on a single issue of special interest to Central America observers around the world.
First up: What in the world goes on in Nayib Bukele’s prisons in El Salvador? And what is the nature of the place where Donald Trump sent Andry and dozens of other Venezuelan migrants?
Lights, camera, prison
You’ve likely heard of CECOT, the Center for Confinement of Terrorists. It’s been getting a lot of press lately. CNN even called it the “world’s deadliest prison”, with no apparent basis, when DHS Secretary Kristi Noem toured the facility with Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro.
NOEM: Do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed, and you will be prosecuted. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.
GRESSIER: In late June 2022, Salvadorans had been living under a state of exception suspending constitutional guarantees for three months. Already overcrowded and underresourced prisons were swelling amid a campaign of mass arrests without due process. Nayib Bukele announced a new prison reportedly designed to hold 40,000 people, CECOT. It shot up from the weeds in rural El Salvador, in the department of San Vicente.
It was inaugurated in January 2023, just six months later, bypassing construction contract oversight. Since the opening, media access has been carefully selected and staged at CECOT. The Salvadoran independent press has not gotten in, but Nayib Bukele has let in a few big U.S. outlets and YouTubers.
More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202505/ef_audio/27803/podcast-for-a-portrait-of-bukele-look-to-his-prisons
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Montaña: The Prison Guard Identified as Torturer of Mariona Prison
Monday, August 19, 2024
Carlos Martínez
El Faro first published this article in Spanish in October 2023.
Inside Mariona Prison in El Salvador, there is an individual who appears recurrently in the testimonies of those who were imprisoned under the state of exception. Someone who everyone remembers by his nickname, Montaña, and who is singled out as a torturer and as the head of prison guards who commit torture. Ex-prisoners describe him as a corpulent and violent man, with the prerogative of giving orders to the guards and strutting up and down different sectors of the prison without any restrictions.
Montaña’s name is William Ernesto Magaña Rodríguez. He is originally from Turín, Ahuachapán, and, according to sources familiar with the internal operations at El Salvador’s Bureau of Prisons, began working as a security employee at Izalco Prison in 2006.
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William Ernesto Magaña Rodríguez is a guard at the Mariona prison, known by his nickname, Montaña. Multiple testimonies from former prisoners point to him as a torturer and as the head of torturers at that prison. Photo taken from Facebook.
During the 29 months that the state of emergency has been in effect, authorities have acknowledged the capture of more than 81,000 people, of which 7,000 have been released––according to the last official figures provided in August 2023 by the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro––after no connection was found between these people and gangs.
Since the beginning of the regime, complaints of mistreatment inside prisons continue to grow: torture, humiliating treatment, withholding of food and medicine, isolation, and even murder have been documented by civil human rights organizations and the independent press.
More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202408/el_salvador/27531/Monta%C3%B1a-The-Prison-Guard-Identified-as-Torturer-of-Mariona-Prison.htm
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Mountain: The Custodian Accused of Torturing Mariona
Within the Mariona prison, there is a character who appears recurrently in the testimonies of those confined there due to the state of exception regime, someone whom everyone remembers by the name Mountain, and who is identified as a torturer and the leader of custodians who commit torture. Former inmates describe him as a burly and violent man, with the prerogative to give orders to the custodians and roam freely through different prison sectors without any restrictions.
The name Mountain belongs to William Ernesto Magaña Rodríguez, who is originally from Turin, Ahuachapán, and according to sources familiar with the internal management of Penitentiary Centers, he began working as a security employee at the Izalco prison in 2006.
During the 18 months that the state of exception regime has been in effect, authorities have acknowledged the arrest of over 72,000 people, of whom 7,000 have been released, according to the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro, after finding no connection between these individuals and gangs.
Since the beginning of the regime, reports of mistreatment inside the prisons have continued to increase: torture, humiliating treatment, suspension of food and medicine, isolation, and even murders have been documented by human rights organizations and independent press. The NGO Cristosal documented at least 153 deaths inside the prisons during the first year of the state of exception regime, of which at least 75 showed signs that their deaths were violent. However, no individual responsibility has ever been established for these actions, partly because prison guards do not wear identification on their uniforms, and most wear balaclavas that cover their faces. That is why the case of Mountain is exceptional: his nickname is mentioned in testimonies collected by the NGOs Cristosal and Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, as well as in the investigative work of El Faro.
Since there is no public record of people arrested during the regime, and visits to prisons by independent government organizations are not allowed, the only official versions are the publications made by some public officials on social media or occasional statements given to some media outlets. For example, the Minister of Public Security, Gustavo Villatoro, stated in a television interview in November 2022 that deaths inside the prisons were a “normal” situation, arguing that all deaths were due to natural causes. Later, in March 2023, the head of the ruling party caucus, Christian Guevara, said that while deaths inside the prisons were indeed murders, they were the result of violence among inmates, and he claimed that this was proof that the detainees were not “kindergarten children.”
Ingrid Escobar, director of Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, states that Mountain has appeared repeatedly in the cases that the institution monitors: “They describe him as a big, intimidating man who has control and authority in Mariona,” she said. At least three people have mentioned his name among the testimonies collected by that organization. He is described as leading those who commit abuses in that prison in all three accounts.
More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202408/el_salvador/27531/Monta%C3%B1a-The-Prison-Guard-Identified-as-Torturer-of-Mariona-Prison.htm
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