On Monday, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urged the Salvadoran state to grant former San Salvador Mayor Ernesto Muyshondt his immediate release, as well as the right to compensation and other forms of reparation.

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Since June 2021, his detention violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The experts’ opinion, adopted at its 105th session, states that the authorities did not provide any legal basis to justify the initial detention. The rapporteurs observed that the then-mayor was arrested and charged with new offenses after having been acquitted in previous proceedings, which constitutes a series of detentions without any real legal basis.

The document, while not legally binding, also underscores serious irregularities in the pretrial detention imposed on the politician, who was also disappeared from September 2023 to December 2024.

Experts indicated that statements made by public officials after his arrest amounted to a declaration of guilt by Muyshondt and a prejudgment of the facts, aimed at swaying public opinion before a judicial hearing.

In this regard, the group believes that the former official was subjected to ill-treatment and even torture, a situation that compromised his ability to mount a defense.

Given this scenario, the UN urges the government to conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the circumstances of this arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

Muyshondt, who governed the capital between 2018 and 2021 as a member of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), faces a complex legal situation.

In February 2025, he was sentenced to four years in prison for dereliction of duty. Seven months later, in September, he received a new 18-year prison sentence for electoral fraud and illicit associations, after allegedly negotiating votes with gangs.

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