Four months in a Salvadoran prison

They said they were tied up, beaten, shot with rubber bullets and gassed.

They said they were punished in a dark room called the island, where they were trampled, kicked and forced to kneel for hours.

One man said officers placed his head in a water tank to simulate drowning.

Another said he was forced to train Oral sex For the guards.

They said officials told them they would die in a Salvadoran prison

When they couldn’t take it anymore, they said, they cut themselves and wrote protest letters on blood-stained sheets.

“All of you “They are terrorists.”» Edwin Melendez, 30, remembers what the officers told him.

Since taking office as president Donald Trump He has held on to what he calls the threat posed by Venezuela and its authoritarian president, Nicolas MaduroHe accused the Venezuelan government and gangs of planning an “invasion” of the United States

In March and April, the Trump administration sent 252 Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador known as “The Prison.” Counter-Terrorism CenterClaiming that they had infiltrated the United States in a form of “irregular warfare.”

Trump accused the men of being gang members. Aragua trainwho worked closely with the Venezuelan government.

It was one of the first actions in the administration’s confrontation with Maduro, which has since intensified, with US warships sinking Venezuelan ships and Trump warning of possible military attacks on Venezuelan territory.

But the men received little or no due process before they were sent to an anti-terrorism prison in El Salvador and arrested. It was released suddenly in JulyThis is part of a broader diplomatic agreement that includes the release of 10 Americans and American residents detained in Venezuela.

The New York Times conducted an interview 40 former prisoners.

Then he asked a group of people Independent forensic experts Which helps investigate allegations of torture that will assess the credibility of the men’s testimony.

Several doctors on that team said the men’s testimonies, along with photos of what they described as their injuries, were consistent and credible, and provided “Convincing evidenceTo support accusations of torture

Luis Chacon, 26, was one of several men who said mistreatment in prison led him to consider suicide.

The father of three children said that he worked as a bus driver. Uber Eats In Milwaukee before he was arrested and sent to prison.

He said his worst moment there came in June, on his eldest son’s seventh birthday.

“We heard that if one person among us dies, they will release us all,” he said.

He thought maybe it should be that person:

He added that he climbed onto a bunk bed and tried to hang himself with a sheet.

He said the other men took him down.

In response to the men’s accusations and the experts’ conclusions, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said:

He added, “President Trump is committed to keeping his promises to the American people by expelling dangerous criminals and illegal foreign terrorists who pose a threat to the American people.”

President’s representatives Nayeb Bukele El Salvador did not respond to a request for comment

The Trump administration has never released a complete list of the names of the 252 Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador or the crimes they allegedly committed.

Using a leaked list of names, The Times found this 13% It appears that some of the men are accused of serious criminal charges or have been convicted somewhere in the world.

(The Times reviewed several public records databases, but the U.S. government may have more information it did not disclose.)

Of the 40 men interviewed for this article, the Times found criminal charges, beyond immigration and traffic offenses, against three of them.

According to the Trump administration, Victor Ortega, 25, faces “pending charges of discharging a firearm and burglary.”

Nierver Leon, 27, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and was fined.

Additionally, U.S. public records indicate that Chacon was arrested in 2024 on domestic violence charges and charged this year with a robbery at a Walmart store.

(The domestic violence case was dismissed, according to public records, and Chacon was sent to El Salvador before the robbery case was solved.)

Many of the men say they still do not know why they were placed in a terrorist prison.

“I immigrated so I could buy a house and provide a better education for my daughter, which I didn’t get,” said 29-year-old Mervyn Yamarti.

A group of helicopters surrounded the airport.

It was shortly after midnight on March 16.

As the plane descended, the Venezuelans said they saw officers in riot gear waiting for them.

The sign identified their landing site as El Salvador.

Detainees recall being told by US officials in US detention centers that they would be deported to Venezuela.

Now, a Salvadoran official has boarded the plane

“Stay here,” recalls Yeskaybel Peñaloza, 25, of the official telling them.

Several men reported that Salvadoran officials, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying batons, boarded the plane and began forcefully removing the group.

“They started beating all of us,” said Andre Hernandez, 32, a makeup artist who has been detained in the United States since crossing the border in 2024.

“If you lifted your head even a little, they would drop it to the ground. Many of our classmates had broken noses, cracked lips, and bruises on their bodies.”

Hours later, Bukele posted a video of the arrival, with music and drone footage as if it were an action movie.

“We continue to make progress in the fight against organized crime,” Bukele wrote on the social media platform X.

“But this time, we’re helping our allies too.”

Inside the prison, the men said, they were told they were members of the Muslim Brotherhood Aragua train

Anilo Sarabia, 20, remembers being told upon arrival: “Welcome to hell.”

“They won’t get out of here except in a body bag.”

To send the men to prison in El Salvador, Trump invoked the Enemy Alien Act, a rarely used 18th-century law that allows people to be removed from an invading nation.

This was a first step in a broader issue the Trump administration has been undertaking:

That Maduro poses a major threat to the security of the United States by flooding it with immigrants, crime, and drugs.

Many of the men detained in the Salvadoran prison said that, far from working for Maduro, they had fled his government when they migrated north.

The men said prison sentences often seemed arbitrary and disproportionate.

Bathing was only allowed at four in the morning.

Former prisoners said the men, who would splash themselves with water to cool down at other times, were sent to the island, where they were beaten by several guards at once.

Several men described being placed in a “leverage” position, where guards forced them to kneel with their hands cuffed behind their backs, then lifted them by their arms.

Tensions increased in April.

After some of the men asked a guard to stop beating on the cell bars at night, the guards pulled them into a central area and fired tear gas in their faces, two men who were in a nearby cell said.

Andres Cedeño, 23, began convulsing.

“Boss, I have asthma,” he shouted.

He said that what the guard did was “laugh.”

Cedeño then became limp and lost consciousness.

The men who were able to see the attack said they thought he was dead.

They remember that the prisoners were afraid and angry, and threw bars of soap and glasses of water.

The next day, they decided to stop eating and demanded better treatment.

Several of the men said they then began cutting their bodies on the jagged edges of metal bed ladders and plastic pipes, using the blood to write messages on papers stuck to the pipes.

The men said the hunger strike lasted four days.

Then, makeup artist Hernandez said, officers sent him to an isolation room.

There, he said, the masked guards forced him to bend over and perform oral sex.

In May, a cell search turned violent, several prisoners recall, and some men began breaking pieces of metal from their beds and using them to break the locks on cell doors.

Briefly, the doors opened.

The officers responded with gunfire and what prisoners described as rubber bullets.

Ortega said he was hit by a projectile that ricocheted off his forehead, causing severe bleeding.

Luis Rodriguez, 26, said a gunshot tore off his hand.

He added that Jose Carmona (28 years old) was injured in his thigh.

After this attempted rebellion, officials forced several men to the island, including Chacón

He said: “There, they put our heads in a tank as if they were drowning us, then they took it out and hit us in our ribs, on our legs, with everything they found.”

Away from the prison, diplomats from the United States and Venezuela were negotiating an agreement that would determine the fate of the prisoners.

Maduro has spent the past year imprisoning US citizens and permanent residents in an attempt to gain influence over Washington.

In July, he agreed to release 10 of them, along with 80 Venezuelan political prisoners, in exchange for the release of 252 men imprisoned in El Salvador.

In interviews, released prisoners reported persistent physical and mental health problems, which they attributed to beatings and other abuses:

Blurred vision, frequent migraines. Difficulty breathing. Shoulder, back and knee pain. Nightmares. insomnia

Cedeno, a 23-year-old man who suffers from asthma, said he had been hospitalized twice since returning to Venezuela, once after an asthma attack that left him unconscious, and once after a heart attack, according to a medical report issued in October.

He said that at night he does not sleep, as he is tormented by the jingling of handcuffs, the voices of Salvadoran officials, and the knocking of cell doors.

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