El Salvador tries ex-leader Funes in absentia for gang truce

By MARCOS ALEMÁN
Associated Press

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador opened a trial Wednesday against former President Mauricio Funes alleging that he had negotiated a truce with the country’s powerful street gangs when he was president, but the trial will proceed without Funes who lives in Nicaragua. Funes has denied negotiating with the gangs or giving their leaders any privileges. “I never ordered nor authorized any negotiation,” Funes wrote Tuesday on Twitter, adding that the truce was between rival gangs, not with the government. He says mediators in the talks between the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs were not representing the government. El Salvador’s congress reformed the law last year to allow people to be tried in absentia.