March 17 (Reuters) – El Salvador’s Congress on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to allow for life sentences for charges including murder, rape, and terrorism, as the government of President Nayib Bukele continues its crackdown on the country’s criminal gangs.
While Salvadoran courts previously handed down sentences exceeding 100 years, the law capped actual time served at 60 years.
The reform passed with the support of 59 lawmakers, with one lawmaker voting against.
“We will see who supports this reform and who will dare to argue that the constitution should continue to prohibit murderers and rapists from remaining in prison,” Bukele wrote on social media before Congress passed the amendment.
The constitutional amendment comes a week after a group of international lawyers said that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed during the country’s controversial state of exception, which the government of President Nayib Bukele imposed four years ago.
The state of exception has allowed security forces to detain more than 90,000 people. Approximately 500 of those detainees have died in state custody.
(Reporting by Reuters, Editing by Natalia Siniawski)
