By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on Thursday denied accusations that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant returned to the U.S. in early June after being wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador, was tortured in a Salvadoran prison.
In a court filing in the U.S. on Wednesday, Abrego Garcia gave a first-hand description of his experience at the Salvadoran high-security prison CECOT and reported severe mistreatment.
His lawyers said he lost 31 pounds (14 kg) in his first two weeks there and was “subjected to severe mistreatment upon arrival at CECOT, including but not limited to severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture.”
Bukele disputed that in a social media post on Thursday.
“But the man wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight,” Bukele said. “If he’d been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture?”
Bukele’s post included pictures and video of Abrego Garcia in detention.
A Maryland resident whose wife and young child are U.S. citizens, Abrego Garcia was deported from the U.S. on March 15 to El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he not be sent there because he could be persecuted by gangs. Officials called his removal an “administrative error.”
Critics of U.S. President Donald Trump pointed to the case as evidence his administration was prioritizing increased deportations over due process – the principle that people in the U.S., whether citizens or not, can contest governmental actions against them in courts.
Trump has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration and says Abrego Garcia belongs to the MS-13 gang, an accusation his lawyers deny.
The Justice Department brought Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. on June 6 after securing an indictment charging him with working with at least five co-conspirators as part of a smuggling ring to bring immigrants to the U.S. illegally.
He has pleaded not guilty and the government says it plans to deport him again. He is currently detained in Tennessee while his criminal case is pending.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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