Natalia Alberto
Jose Duval Mata's mother, Marcela Alvarado, hasn't heard from him since he was detained more than two years ago.
If he is still alive, José Duval Mata is trapped in a living nightmare.
The 26-year-old tractor driver has been in prison for more than two years on suspicion of “gang ties,” despite the Salvadoran justice system twice ordering his immediate release.
Despite two judges clearly ruling in Mata's favor, he remains in one of the toughest prisons in the world, El Salvador's notorious Cecotto Prison, a maximum security facility for “terrorist detention.”
The BBC has repeatedly reported this case to the Salvadoran government, including to the Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Security, the Vice President and directly to President Najib Bukele himself, earlier this year.
Despite repeated assurances from authorities that they would investigate, no action has been taken to date.
It's a Kafkaesque story.
In April 2022, Mata was on her way to her home in the dusty rural town of La Noria when she was stopped by troops who had entered her village as part of President Bukele's nationwide crackdown on the country's most powerful street gangs.
Lysette Remus / BBC
Each cell in El Salvador's notorious Cecotto Prison can hold more than 150 inmates.
An emergency order known as the “state of exception” has suspended many constitutional rights, allowing police and military forces to detain anyone suspected of gang ties without due legal process.
According to New York-based human rights group Human Rights Watch, some 70,000 people were arrested over the two-year period, including about 3,000 children with no clear ties to gang activity.
Although Mata maintained he had never belonged to or worked for a gang, the military detained him on suspicion of “unlawful association,” a catch-all term used to round up people under the state of emergency.
His mother, Marcela Alvarado, has not seen or heard from her son since that day.
“The police asked me to bring evidence to prove his innocence, so I collected his high school diploma, land deeds, bank loan repayment receipts and an affidavit of good character from his employer,” she explained to the BBC, showing documents that experts say few Salvadoran gang members would have in their possession.
Her efforts were in vain.
José Duval was tried along with over 350 other prisoners in a mass trial that lasted just a few minutes. He was initially sentenced to six months, but this was later extended indefinitely.
Marcela still cries when she thinks about it, but it was about to get even worse.
Jose Duval was released temporarily after a judge ordered his immediate release in September 2022.
However, while he was waiting for his family to pick him up, he was rearrested at the prison entrance on the same charges.
Rearresting prisoners at the prison gates “is an arbitrary act, an illegal detention and double jeopardy,” said Noah Block, executive director of Cristosal, a leading Salvadoran human rights NGO.
Nevertheless, he says the practice is widespread during emergency situations.
In June 2023, a second judge confirmed the earlier decision to release Mata. But more than a year later, Mata remains in prison and Marcela's desperate requests for information have gone unheeded.
Natalia Alberto
Marcela Alvarado said she has provided documents to authorities proving her son's innocence.
José Duval's family is currently presenting his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
A source within the Salvadoran prosecutor's office told the BBC there was “no legal justification or clear explanation” for the young man's continued detention.
Throughout their ordeal, Marcela faithfully delivered weekly food parcels to the Izalco prison where her son was being held – plastic bags filled with “cornflakes, oatmeal, bread and cookies” to help support José Duval beyond the prison's meager rations, she said.
When she delivered the food bags to him last June, guards told her he had been transferred out of the prison a few weeks earlier.
Her worst fears had come true.
José Duval is currently being held in the Terrorism Detention Center (Cecotto), a maximum security prison that is a key part of President Bukele's anti-gang policy.
Bukele's supporters have hailed the facility as evidence of his tough stance on gang crime.
Critics consider the prison a black hole for human rights and one of the toughest prisons in the world.
President Bukele has repeatedly said that prisoners have never seen “a sliver of light” and receive only the most basic rations of cold rice and tortillas.
Bukele's administration widely publicized photographs showing prisoners with shaved heads and heavily tattooed bodies being transferred to the facility.
Reuters
The Salvadoran government has released photos like this one from 2023 to promote its crackdown on gangs.
Bukele has repeatedly defended the State of Exceptions and Cecotto, saying they have changed the face of security in El Salvador.
Many “no-go” and gang-controlled areas have in fact been returned to security force control, and entire communities say they no longer live in fear.
So the crackdown has been widely supported: Millions of El Salvadorans are forever grateful to their young, media-savvy leader for tackling the gang problem with swift and ruthless force.
In February, President Najib Bukele was overwhelmingly re-elected, winning around 90% of the vote.
At the press conference, I asked the President if he planned to focus his second term on releasing those who have been unjustly detained.
President Bukele launched into a lengthy response in which he attacked his critics, particularly from abroad, alleging there had been a high-profile wrongful conviction in the UK.
He said security forces had made “a few mistakes” and that around 7,000 people had already been released.
The crackdown has brought calm back to El Salvador's streets, he argued, and that's what matters most.
Reuters
President Bukele's popularity has soared following mass arrests of alleged gang members.
I gave him details about the José Duval Mata case, and after the press conference, his team asked me for a copy of the judge's release order. A few days later, one of his aides requested the information again, this time in digital form, and I again provided it to them.
Over the next few weeks, the BBC repeatedly pursued Bukele's government and I spoke directly to Vice President Félix Ulloa on this matter on several occasions.
More than a year ago, he told the BBC that Mata was just days away from being released.
Ulloa said he hopes the media will portray Jose Duval Mata as “an iconic example of due process” once he gets out of prison.
In fact, at that point he had been transferred to Cecotto without his family's knowledge.
After months of requests, the BBC was granted access to the prison earlier this year but was not allowed to speak to inmates or question staff about specific cases.
Meanwhile, Marcela has had no proof her son is alive or any official confirmation of his whereabouts for more than two years. Naturally, she has often wondered if José Duval may have died in prison.
“I thought about it a lot,” she told me from her small patch of land in La Noria. “The thought haunted me and I was in complete despair. All I could do was cry.”
For now, she says she is just clinging to the hope that her son is still alive and will eventually be released.
“I trust in God, and that's all I can do.”
