El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has disputed claims that Kilmar Abrego Garcia experienced “severe mistreatment” and “torture” while he was held in Salvadoran custody.
This week, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said the 29-year-old was subject to “severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture” while he was held in a notorious, maximum-security prison known as CECOT. Abrego Garcia was sent there in March after the Trump administration wrongfully deported him.
Now, Bukele says Abrego Garcia “wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight.”
Bukele wrote: “If he’d been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture? Why would he gain weight? Why are there no bruises, or even dark circles under his eyes?”
Bukele included a three-and-a-half-minute video of what he said was Abrego Garcia in custody. The clips appear to show Abrego Garcia doing various activities, including speaking with his cellmate, eating, working at a fish farm and holding a parrot as part of a “mental wellness activity.”
Salvadoran officials say Abrego Garcia was held in two facilities while in custody: CECOT and a second, lower-security detention center known as Centro Industrial. The video appears to show Abrego Garcia in the lower-security detention center.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say he was brutally beaten at CECOT. Prison employees hit him “with wooden batons” when he first arrived, his lawyers wrote in their recent filing. The next day, “Abrego Garcia had visible bruises and lumps all over his body,” they said.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said he was forced to share a cell with 20 other Salvadorans. They were all “forced to kneel” from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., “with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion,” the complaint states.
“During this time, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself,” his lawyers wrote. “The detainees were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation.”
Abrego Garcia lost 31 pounds while in custody, his lawyers added.
Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally at 16 years old after fleeing El Salvador. Before he was deported, he was living and working in Maryland with his wife and children.
Lawyers for the Trump administration admitted the government wrongfully deported Abrego Garcia. But the administration launched a weeks-long legal battle to keep him in El Salvador soon afterward.
The Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return in April. He was returned to the U.S. in June after a grand jury indicted him on charges related to illegally transporting immigrants across the country.
Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty.
