The lawyer and former leader of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) was arrested on his way back from dropping his son off at school on Thursday morning.

The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) published on its social networks that he was arrested for illicit enrichment, in detriment of the Public Administration, a crime for which he was convicted in November. The family mentions that he was in the street when he was arrested.

Confirmed (his capture). We only know that he was captured in the street. He was coming from dropping off his son, we do not know more details’, indicated a family source.

Chicas, former president of the TSE, is a critic of Nayib Bukele’s government and claims that the elections were fraudulent.

On November 12, 2024, the Second Civil Chamber of San Salvador found him and his family group guilty of the crime of illicit enrichment, and sentenced them to reimburse 202,557.51 to the State, 80,000 less than what the Attorney General’s Office requested in its indictment.

Some attribute his arrest to political purposes, as he is one of the defense witnesses in the process against the environmental leaders of Santa Marta, a process that, according to critics, the government wants to win in order to strengthen its bet on metallic mining.

Chicas was a deputy of the FMLN in the Legislative Assembly and the Central American Parliament, magistrate of the TSE and Secretary of Communications during the government of Salvador Sánchez Cerén.

Local media highlight that Chicas, who was arrested in 2019, faced a criminal trial in which he defeated Bukele.

The then president-elect apologized to Chicas for publicly accusing him of raping a minor and agreed to pay 50 000 dollars to conclude a trial for slander, when the current president had not yet assumed the presidency.

Chicas told journalists, at that time, that the governor assumed his responsibility in front of a judge of the First Sentence Court of the central town of Santa Tecla.

Yesterday, different social organizations, the community of Santa Marta, the Bloque de Resistencia y Rebeldía Popular and the FMLN defended the integrity of the former judge, demanded his freedom, and accused authorities of promoting a political revenge.

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