Salvadoran President's Office Ordered Espionage Against Journalists and Political Opponents

Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Óscar Martínez and Gabriel Labrador
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A journalistic investigation published on Sunday, September 15, reveals audio recorded by Alejandro Muyshondt, a former national security advisor to President Nayib Bukele, in meetings with senior administration officials. One of the audio files, which according to the exposé was recorded in August 2020, records an agreement between Muyshondt and the then-private secretary of the Presidency, Ernesto Castro, to mount an espionage operation against journalists, news outlets, and political opponents. Among those mentioned are the independent digital outlets El Faro and Revista Factum and the traditional newspapers La Prensa Gráfica and El Diario de Hoy. During that conversation, in an acknowledgement of the illegality of the operation, Muyshondt explained to Castro that he kept all the gathered information in a safe place where prosecutors would not find it if they were to raid their offices.

In the article, available in Spanish in the Guatemalan outlet Prensa Comunitaria, journalist Héctor Silva Ávalos states that he obtained access to eight hours of recorded conversations between Muyshondt and different officials, though he only details part of two conversations between the former advisor and Castro. The meetings were held one week apart, in August 2020, according to the investigation.

Since May 1, 2021, Castro has been the president of the Legislative Assembly, in which the ruling party Nuevas Ideas holds a supermajority. His meetings with Muyshondt occurred when he worked in the Office of the President, before he was even a legislative candidate and when he was responsible, among other things, for supervising and administering the Presidency’s discretional secret budget, comprised of public funds made available to each government to spend without accountability.

Muyshondt, who had shown sympathy for Bukele since he was a candidate for mayor of San Salvador, was named national security advisor in June 2019, the month when Bukele was first sworn-in as president. He gained notoriety in 2013 when he unsuccessfully attempted to capture cell phone thieves in the Historic Center District of San Salvador, armed with an AK-47, a nine-millimeter pistol, a paintball mask, and a GoPro camera. At the time, he was known to lob biting criticism online against Arena and FMLN party administrations. In August 2023, he was arrested and accused by President Bukele of working as a “double agent” and leaking confidential information to former FMLN President Mauricio Funes. In February 2024, he died in state custody.

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https://elfaro.net/en/202409/el_salvador/27558/salvadoran-president-rsquo-s-office-ordered-espionage-against-journalists-and-political-opponents