Ernesto Muesund, former mayor of San Salvador and Heriberto Portillo Linares, former municipal treasurer The Directorate of Punitive Centers confirmed that they were transferred this afternoon to the ninth section of La Esperanza prison, known as Mariona.

We’re making this transfer to the Mariona Sanctions Center efficient. “At this moment, we are implementing judicial instructions under strict security measures,” said director Osiris Luna. The two suspects were being held at the Police Border Security Division’s barracks.

The prison authorities stated that the transfer took place with the permission of the Third Peace Court, which on the previous Monday had ordered pretrial detention.

Former municipal officials have been tried for embezzlement of tax deductions in the Solid Waste Directorate of the Metropolitan Mayor’s Office and for breach of duty.

The Attorney General’s Office reported that the Mayor’s Office withheld income tax from employees of the above-mentioned address, between June and December 2020, and it was not to be delivered to the Ministry of Finance. The amount comes to $275,145.31, but with interest and penalties, the amount is $550,290, according to the attorney general’s office.

Defendant Francisco Jose Rivera Chacon ordered alternative measures to preventive detention, including: to appear in court every 15 days, not to leave the country and to submit a $5,000 bond.

After being sent to prison for this third trial against him, Moeschundt said he was on a hunger strike.

“From this day on and to create awareness about what our country is going through, that there is no longer a separation, independence and division of state powers, that we have the Public Prosecutor’s Office under the executive branch, that we have various institutions and state resources, and officials who use their positions to persecute, harass, and slander, and slander, harassing political opponents, whom we think differently … ”, said the former mayor as he left the first session.