(Washington) Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the detainee deported to Salvador, said he had suffered physical violence, a deprivation of significant sleep and psychological torture in the country’s notorious prison, where he was transferred by the Trump administration in March, according to legal papers deposited on Wednesday.
He said he was kicked and hit so often on his arrival that, the next day, he presented bruises and bumps visible all over the body. He added that he and 20 other people had been forced to stay on his knees overnight and that the guards hit anyone who fell.
Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland when he was expelled by mistake and became a concern in the migratory repression of President Donald Trump.
The new details of his incarceration in Salvador were added to a complaint against the Trump administration by his wife before a Federal Maryland court after his expulsion.
The Trump administration asked a Maryland federal judge to reject the complaint, arguing that it is now without object, because the government has dismissed it to the United States in accordance with the court order.
In 2019, an American immigration judge had prohibited the expulsion of Mr. Abrego Garcia to his native Salvador, because he was probably persecuted by local gangs who had terrorized him and his family.
The Trump Administration expelled it despite the ordinance of the 2019 judge, later qualifying it as “administrative error”. Donald Trump and other officials have since reiterated their accusations of belonging to the Gang MS-13.
On March 15, Mr. Abrego Garcia was expelled to Salvador and imprisoned in the country’s megaprison, the detention center for terrorists (CECOT).
In the new court documents, the man said that the CECOT prisoners “were confined in metal berths without mattresses, in a overcrowded cell, without windows, with lively light lights on 24 hours a day and minimal access to health facilities”.
The prison officials had repeatedly repeated to him that they would transfer him to cells with gang members who “drop him”. Mr. Abrego Garcia said he saw other people in neighboring cells bother violently and heard cries overnight.
His condition has deteriorated and he lost more than 13 kilos in his first two weeks of detention, he said.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, visited him in Salvador in April. According to the senator, Mr. Abrego Garcia said he was transferred from megaprison to a detention center offering better conditions.
The Trump administration continued to deal with increasing pressure and an order from the Supreme Court ordering its dismissal to the United States. When the United States government brought him back last month, he had to respond to federal accusations of human trafficking in Tennessee.
General prosecutor Pam Bondi said, when Mr. Abrego Garcia returns, that “it is what American justice looks like”. But the prisoners’ lawyers qualified these accusations as “absurd” and attempt to justify his unjustified expulsion.
A federal judge of Tennessee ruled that the man could be released – under certain conditions – pending his trial for the criminal accusations which weigh against him in Tennessee. However, she kept him in prison at the moment at the request of her own lawyers, fearing a new expulsion at her release.
The spokesman for the Department of Justice, Chad Gilmartin, told the Associated Press last month that the department intended to judge Mr. Abrego Garcia for human trafficking before making a new expulsion.
In addition, lawyer for the Department of Justice Jonathan Guynn reported to a Federal Judge in Maryland last month that the US government planned to expel him to a “third country” other than Salvador. Mr. Guynn said that no calendar was provided for this expulsion. But the lawyers of Mr. Abrego Garcia cited Mr. Guynn’s comments as a reason to fear “immediate” expulsion.
