Since coming to power in 2009, El Salvador's president has declared the purge of corrupt police officials a top government priority
BOGOTA (TrustLaw) - At least 350 police officers in El Salvador have been fired over misconduct and corruption in the last two years as part of a clean up of the country’s police force, according to local Prensa Grafica.
El Salvador’s national police force is carrying out an internal investigation involving around 1,600 police officers over allegations that they have conspired with criminal and drug gangs and or have been involved in the killings of innocent civilians.
Since coming to power in 2009, El Salvador’s leftist president, Mauricio Funes, has declared the purge of corrupt police officials a top government priority.
“We are working to get rid of people involved in illicit acts in the (police) institution, but there is also a campaign going on to discredit the national police force,” police inspector Zaira Navas was quoted as saying in Prensa Grafica.
El Salvador is struggling to contain spiralling drug-fuelled crime. The Central American nation is increasingly being used by local and Mexican drug gangs as a passage through which to transport cocaine into the United States.
With an average of 60 murders per 100,000 inhabitants between 2004 to 2009, El Salvador is the world’s most violent country, according to the latest report on global crime by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development.
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
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