(Washington) American justice announced Wednesday the indictment of a leader of the gang MS – 13 using for the first time charges of terrorism to fight the criminal organization of Hispanic origin feared for its violence.
Posted on 15 July 2020 at 18 h 56
France Media Agency
The Salvadoran Armando Eliu Melgar Diaz is notably accused of having provided material support to terrorists, instigating terrorist acts in the United States and financing drug trafficking.
According to the indictment filed in the court of Alexandria, Virginia, he directed the activities of the MS from El Salvador – 13 on the east coast of the United States, having ordered or approved numerous murders, supervised drug trafficking and collected money from some 20 groups in the region.
Armando Eliu Melgar Diaz lived illegally in the United States from 2003 to 2016 before being returned to El Salvador. He then became the main coordinator of the group's activities on the American east coast.
He is currently in detention in El Salvador, accused of drug trafficking and murder.
The Department of Justice did not specify why it decided to use these terrorist charges, while noting that the government of El Salvador had designated the MS – 13 as a terrorist group.
Created in the middle of the years 1980 to protect the Hispanic minority from Los Angeles gangs, Mara Salvatrucha has spread to ten states in the country. Its members expelled to El Salvador have revived the organization there, as well as in Honduras and Guatemala, where it is spreading terror.
President Donald Trump, fierce opponent of illegal immigration, regularly claims that members of the MS – 13 infiltrate caravans of Central American migrants trying to cross the country's border to seek asylum.
“The MS – 13 are a violent transnational organization whose activities have no borders,” said John Durham, head of the special unit of the department responsible for investigating the gang.
“The only way to beat the MS – 13 is to treat them as an organization, focusing on command structure and deploying all the power of government against a common enemy, “he added.
The department also announced the charges of murder, drug trafficking and the abduction of 21 alleged members of the MS – 13 arrested in New York and Nevada during separate operations.
He also indicated that he would ask for the death penalty in the trial of a gang leader, Alexi Saenz, charged in 2017 for seven murders in New York .
The last capital execution for a federally tried crime in New York State was in 1954.
The Trump government carried out the first capital execution of a federal convict on Tuesday morning in 17 years.
