{"id":1856,"date":"2025-07-22T07:49:35","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T07:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/22\/venezuela-to-probe-el-salvadors-bukele-for-torture-of-us-deportees\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T07:49:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T07:49:35","slug":"venezuela-to-probe-el-salvadors-bukele-for-torture-of-us-deportees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/22\/venezuela-to-probe-el-salvadors-bukele-for-torture-of-us-deportees\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela to probe El Salvador\u2019s Bukele for \u2018torture\u2019 of US deportees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Deported migrants say they were beaten, sexually abused and fed rotten food inside a notorious El Salvador prison.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Venezuela has launched an investigation into the role El Salvador\u2019s President Nayib Bukele and his senior officials played in the alleged torture of 252 migrants who were detained in the Central American country after being deported from the United States.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab made the announcement in Caracas on Monday, as he presented photos and testimonies of some of the men, who said they were beaten, sexually abused and fed rotten food while inside a notorious El Salvador prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Others were denied medical care or treated without anaesthesia, Saab said, urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN Human Rights Council to act.<\/p>\n

The Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador from the US in March, after US President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act<\/a> to deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without due process.<\/p>\n

The deportations drew fierce criticism from human rights groups and a legal battle with the Trump administration. Family members and lawyers of many of the men deny they had gang ties.<\/p>\n

Prisoner swap<\/h2>\n

The former detainees arrived near Caracas on Friday following their release in El Salvador, in exchange for 10 US citizens and political prisoners held in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Saab said the prosecutor\u2019s office was interviewing the returned migrants. Some of the former detainees have since reunited with their families, but they have not yet returned to their own homes.<\/p>\n

Several had bruises on their bodies, marks of being shot with rubber bullets, and one had a split lip.<\/p>\n

Andry Hernandez Romero, a 32-year-old beautician among those sent to El Salvador, said he barely survived the ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were going through torture, physical aggressions, psychological aggressions,\u201d he said in a video presented by Saab. \u201cI was sexually abused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others spoke of being held in \u201cinhuman cells\u201d, deprived of sunlight and ventilation, and given rotten food and unsafe drinking water while in the El Salvador prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The men had no access to lawyers or their relatives, and the last time many of them were seen was when Bukele\u2019s government issued photos of them arriving at the prison shackled and with their heads shorn.<\/p>\n

Apart from Bukele, Venezuela will investigate El Salvador\u2019s Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro and Head of Prisons Osiris Luna Meza, Saab said.<\/p>\n

Bukele\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the media. Late on Monday, Bukele posted about the return on social media but did not comment on the abuse allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Maduro regime was satisfied with the swap deal; that\u2019s why they accepted it,\u201d he said on X. \u201cNow they scream their outrage, not because they disagree with the deal but because they just realised they ran out of hostages from the most powerful country in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Nicolas Maduro, on his TV show on Monday, claimed Bukele had tried \u201clast minute\u201d to prevent the migrants from leaving.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could not stop the first plane, but for the second plane he put some car on the runway \u2026 to provoke either an accident or prevent them from leaving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado labelled the process as an \u201cexchange of prisoners of war\u201d during a television interview on Monday.<\/p>\n

Venezuela itself faces an investigation by the ICC<\/a> in The Hague, with similar allegations of torturing prisoners and denying them access to legal representation of political prisoners.<\/p>\n

\"epa12251957
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab speaks at a news conference at the Public Ministry in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday [Ronald Pena R\/EPA]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source: <\/p>\n

Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deported migrants say they were beaten, sexually abused and fed rotten food inside a notorious El Salvador prison. Venezuela has launched an investigation into the role El Salvador\u2019s President Nayib Bukele and his senior officials played in the alleged torture of 252 migrants who were detained in the Central American country after being deported from … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}