Bukele d’El Salvador publishes images of prison contesting migrant torture complaints

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele published a video highlighting that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is apparently prospering during his imprisonment, in order to refute the migrant’s assertions that he was tortured in detention.

Abrego Garcia, who tried a judge, was wrongly expelled by the Trump administration in Salvador, then returned after a court order, is seen in video gardening, playing football, fishing and enjoying other quiet activities when she was imprisoned in her country of origin.

The video appears in contradiction with the complaints of Abrego Garcia in the legal deposits according to which he was seriously beaten, deprived of sleep and psychologically tortured when he was detained.

Abrego Garcia was detained for the first time at the country’s confinement center in the country, or Cecot, a notorious anti-terrorist prison in March, then transferred to a low-security establishment in Santa Ana in mid-April. Bukele does not say what prison the images were taken.

According to court documents, Abrego Garcia’s physical condition quickly deteriorated when he arrived in Cecot and within two weeks, he lost around 31 pounds.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele published a video highlighting that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is apparently prospering during his imprisonment, in order to refute the migrant’s assertions that he was tortured in detention. (Fox News; @nayibbukefox News; @nayibbukele)

Abrego Garcia says he endured, torture in Salvadoral prison before the criminal trial

But Bukele postponed these statements on Thursday, saying that he had really gained weight and published video evidence to refute the allegations of torture.

The video shows Abrego Garcia in a good humor, playing chess and football, working with other prisoners, making gardening and relaxing while watching a large screen TV in its cell, among other quiet activities.

“If he had been tortured, deprived of sleep and hungry, why does he look so much on each image?” Bukele wrote on X. “Why would he gain weight? Why is there no bruise, or even dark circles before his eyes?”

Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-MD, meeting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia (L) in a place not disclosed on April 17, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Senator Van Hollen office via Getty Images)

“The man was not tortured, and he has not lost weight. In fact, the photos show that he has gained weight during his detention. There are a lot of different days sequences, including his meeting with Senator Van Hollen, who himself confirmed that the man seemed good.”

Bukele then torn the consumer media for apparently believing the claims.

Trump’s remarks could come back to bite him into the deportation battle of Abrego Garcia

“Apparently, everything that claims to be criminal is accepted as the truth by the consumer media and the ruined Western judicial system,” wrote Bukele.

Under the state of emergency of Bukele, the government has owned more than 1% of the population of the Nation of Central America in its war against the country’s gangs. The president transformed what was once the most dangerous country in the world – with a homicide rate of 103 per 100,000 people in 2015 – in one of the safest in the western hemisphere, with 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024. The American rate was 5.5 per 100,000 people in 2023, which are the most recent records available.

President Donald Trump, on the right, shakes the hand of the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, during a meeting at the Oval Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday, April 14, 2025. (Pool via AP)

Hundreds of people died in the prisons of El Salvador, according to the Associated Press, citing human rights groups, which also documented cases of torture and deteriorated conditions.

Abrego Garcia, who lived in Maryland after coming to the United States illegally, was expelled in Salvador in March 2025. He became an important face of the resistance of Democrats at the Mass Deportation Plans of the Trump Administration.

The Trump administration accuses him of being a member of the MS-13 gang, a trafficker of human beings and a serial domestic aggressor among his wife’s police reports that he used the violence against her.

President Donald Trump in the oval office holding a photo of the tattoos on the joints of Abrego Garcia which, according to the White House, are affiliated with the MS-13 terrorist group. (Donald Trump Truth Social)

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The lawyers of Abrego Garcia said that in his arrival at prison, he was immediately marked by the frog in his cell by prison guards, who kicked him with boots and struck him with wooden batons along the way, leaving bumps and bruises visible on his body.

He and other cell detainees slept on metal mattresses, with minimal access to food and satiety. They were also forced to kneel for about nine hours, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., “with guards hitting anyone who fell out of exhaustion,” said deposits.

They claim that he was also psychologically tortured and received threats of violence during his stay in Cecot where the prison guards told him several times that they would transfer him in other prison cells housing members of violent gangs, that they assured him “tear” him “.

White House The chief of staff Stephen Miller said previously that when Trump had violated a terrorist organization, Abrego Garcia was no longer eligible for a form of help in the United States, inviting his deportation.

Breanne Deppisch de Fox News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.