El Salvador began proceedings in late April against 486 alleged leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13), one of the world's most violent street gangs, charging them with ordering more than 29,000 killings between 2012 and 2022 — the country's largest ever trial. President Nayib Bukele drew comparisons to the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, noting that the case marks the first time the legal principle of "command responsibility" has been applied to a gang structure, with 413 defendants appearing virtually from the CECOT maximum-security mega-prison and 73 tried in absentia. Human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch and Cristosal have criticised the mass proceeding as potentially unfair, arguing it presumes collective rather than individual guilt, even as Bukele's broader crackdown — which has produced over 91,000 detentions since a 2022 state of exception — has driven El Salvador's homicide rate down from 18 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021 to 1.9 in 2025.