Political situation in El Salvado

Prosecution against activists condemned: "Are respected leaders"

Five environmentalists who campaigned successfully to ban metal mining in El Salvador face life in prison for a murder committed in 1989, The Guardian reports.

- They are respected community leaders, and to sentence them to inhuman prison conditions would be a death sentence, says Pedro Cabezas, who represents the Central American Alliance Against Mining.

The trial began this week and the case has been condemned by both the UN and international experts who believe that the prosecution is politically motivated.

The mining operation is important to the hard-line president Nayib Bukele's ambitions to attract foreign investors, while environmental activists believe that the metal mining risks leading to forced displacement.

Industrial mining has been banned since 2017, but Bukele's ambition is to lift the ban.

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Expert: The outcome shows whether Bukele respects the environment

If there is any justice left in El Salvador, the environmental activists facing life imprisonment in a high-profile murder case will be freed. This is what the head of the US-based think tank Institute for Policy Studies, John Cavanagh, told The Guardian.

- Otherwise, the public will see that President Bukele respects neither human rights nor the environment.

Five activists are accused of a murder committed in 1989 when all were members of the guerrilla movement FMLN, one of the parties in the civil war. According to The Guardian, the case is based entirely on the testimony of a person who first claimed to have witnessed the murder, but then changed his mind to having had it recounted to him.

The activists had leading roles in a campaign that led to industrial mining being banned in 2017. Bukele wants to overturn that ban.