Mauricio Funes, the former president of El Salvador, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison by a court in San Salvador for negotiating with the country’s various criminal gangs for political favors in an effort to lower the murder rate, the Associated Press reports. The trial was held in absentia as Funes has lived in Nicaragua for the last several years.
El Salvador’s president from 2009 to 2014, Funes asserted he never negotiated with the gangs, but was sentenced to eight years for illicit association and six years for failure to perform his duties. Prosecutors said Funes granted jailed gang leaders special privileges in exchange for their orders to cut down on murders and their support for his Party in elections. (Incidentally, the US State Department has accused El Salvador’s current president, Nayib Bukele, of the same thing.)