Venezuelan Prosecutor Denounces Salvadoran President for Human Trafficking

Attorney General William Tarek Saab. X/ @GenesisYireth_

April 21, 2025 Hour: 2:58 pm

Nayib Bukele’s actions against deported migrants qualify as forced disappearances and human trafficking, Saab said.

On Monday, Venezuelan Attorney General William Tarek Saab noted that recent statements by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele show that he is arbitrarily detaining 252 Venezuelans who were illegally deported from the United States.

Tarek also emphasized that this constitutes a case of forced disappearance, given that those migrants are held practically incommunicado in a high-security prison that resembles a “concentration camp.”

The Venezuelan Attorney General called the Salvadoran president a “serial violator” of human rights and denounced that the far-right politician is receiving US$7 million from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to hold the Venezuelan migrants.

These 252 migrants are victims of humiliation and cruel and inhuman treatment, Saab said, recalling that these complaints have been documented through videos released by the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office.

Aplauden a Bukele porque “acabó con las maras”, pero nadie habla de las madres llorando afuera de las cárceles, ni de los jóvenes capturados solo por vivir en el lugar equivocado.
No es justicia, es castigo colectivo.
Y mientras tanto, él sonríe en las cámaras, se pone filtros,… pic.twitter.com/L8YI1QgQjp
— Enyd Blanco (@EnydBlanco27) April 21, 2025

The text reads, “They applaud Bukele because he ‘put an end to the gangs,’ but no one talks about the mothers crying outside the prisons, or the young people arrested simply for living in the wrong place. It’s not justice, it’s collective punishment. And meanwhile, he smiles for the cameras, puts on filters, and makes jokes… But beneath the show, there’s real suffering.”

The Bolivarian official also recalled that, between 2019 and 2025, the number of prisoners in El Salvador increased from approximately 38,000 to 120,000, meaning that “Bukele has imprisoned 2% of the Salvadoran population,” the world’s highest incarceration rate.

Saab asked the Salvadoran Prosecutor’s Office to respond to the habeas corpus requests filed by the lawyers of the Venezuelans who remain in prison so that they can achieve immediate release.

On Sunday, in a message posted on social media, Bukele admitted the mass detention of Venezuelan citizens in a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, while accusing President Nicolas Maduro’s administration of allegedly having “political prisoners” in Venezuela.

While Bukele himself faces accusations of maintaining the most repressive prison system in Latin America, he proposed an “agreement” for the repatriation of 252 Venezuelans in exchange for people prosecuted for the acts of violence following the 2024 presidential elections in Venezuela.

#FromTheSouth News Bits | United States: A federal judge overturned President Donald Trump's decision to eliminate humanitarian parole for migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua. pic.twitter.com/b57Hhth7iQ
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) April 16, 2025