El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele speaks during a joint press conference with Costa Rica’s President Rodrigo Chaves at the “Jorge Arturo Montero Castro” penitentiary center in Alajuela, Costa Rica, on November 12, 2024. Agence France-Presse
SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele acknowledged on Tuesday that 8,000 innocent people were arrested and later released during his crackdown on street gangs, accusing activists of inventing a much higher figure of 30,000.
“No police anywhere in the world are perfect,” Bukele said during a visit to Costa Rica.
“In El Salvador, as in Costa Rica, France, Germany, England, the United States, innocent people are arrested. This happens everywhere,” he said.
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“We have already freed 8,000 people. And we are going to free 100 percent of the innocent people,” Bukele added.
The rights group Socorro Juridico Humanitario estimates that almost a third of the 83,000 Salvadorans who have been detained under a state of emergency — which allows arrests without a court order — are innocent.
The crackdown on street gangs has led to a sharp fall in homicides and is praised by many Salvadorans, although rights groups have criticized Bukele’s methods as ignoring people’s basic rights.
READ: El Salvador leader defends gang crackdown at UN: ‘It was the right thing’
Bukele advised Costa Rica to tighten its prison system, calling it too “permissive,” after visiting a jail with his counterpart Rodrigo Chaves.