Although the five water defenders have been declared innocent for a second time, three of them could face potential civil liability.
From International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador
For immediate release
Press contacts below
San Salvador – On January 30, the official announcement of the verdict in the second trial against five prominent Santa Marta water defenders and community leaders affirmed that all five water defenders have been found not guilty on all charges.
On September 24, 2025, the presiding tribunal in San Vicente, El Salvador found five prominent water defenders from Santa Marta, Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega, innocent of charges of murder, kidnapping, and illicit association.
The written ruling confirms what the legal defense team and environmental organizations argued from the beginning, that the charges lacked factual and legal grounds to go to trial in the first place and the legal process against the water defenders violated legal principles such as the presumption of innocence, and right to due process, as enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic and in the international human rights instruments ratified by El Salvador.
The acquittal further confirms that the justice administrators in El Salvador utilized state institutions to criminalize water defenders who are known internationally for their role in the prohibition of metallic mining in 2017, and who had denounced Nayib Bukele’s intention to bring back metal mining to El Salvador.
Although the five water defenders have been declared innocent for a second time, in this second trial three of them may still face further legal proceedings, as the tribunal has ruled that they are subject to abstract civil liability, a legal process that allows the alleged victims to sue for material damages.
A statement published by family members and leaders from the Santa Marta community declares, “It is legally unfounded, arbitrary, and unjust that, in the absence of any criminal conviction, the court has sought to impose “abstract” civil liability on some of the acquitted individuals. Such a decision directly violates the principles of presumption of innocence, legality, personal culpability, and legal certainty.”
“These actions constitute a form of institutional harassment that violates the rights to personal security, community integrity, and freedom of organization, and demonstrate the continued misuse of the justice system against a community that has already been historically persecuted,” the statement continues.
“The five Water Defenders should never have been charged, and the Salvadoran government’s willingness to pursue these accusations despite their clear innocence signals a worrying willingness to persecute the movement that these five water defenders represent. We call on the Salvadoran government to forgo future sham prosecutions and uphold the democratic rule of law in future pursuit of true justice,” said John Cavanagh, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Policy Studies.
“Despite the positive results, the international community should be aware that the struggle is far from over. Beyond the possibility of a civil case, the Attorney General still has the possibility of appealing the acquittal and taking it all the way to the Supreme Court level. It may take years before the Santa Marta Five are declared fully innocent,” said Pedro Cabezas, coordinator of the Central American Alliance against Mining.
This official announcement of the trial verdict comes as leaders of Santa Marta have denounced the presence of police officers and prosecutors of the Attorney General in the community, allegedly interviewing survivors of civil war massacres committed by the military in Cabañas. But, the members of the community are concerned that these are indications of a renewed attempt to reactivate persecution through the fabrication of new criminal cases.
Once again, the five prominent Water Defenders who faced politically-motivated charges have been declared innocent — and they should never have been arrested. International Allies against Mining in El Salvador calls upon the Salvadoran Attorney General to abstain from further legal action and demands that all civil liabilities are dropped.
On December 1, 2025, International Allies also published an open letter signed by 153 prominent faith organizations from 25 countries urging preservation of El Salvador’s historic 2017 metals mining ban, which was overturned in 2024 under orders of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. The full list of signatories of the open letter from faith organizations represents local, regional, and national expressions of faith communities, denominations, and related agencies from countries and regions around the world, including Asia, Canada, Colombia, Germany, the Middle East, Spain, the United States, and Zambia, among others.
Press contacts:
John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, johnc@ips-dc.org
Pedro Cabezas, Central American Alliance against Mining (ACAFREMIN) and International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, stopesmining@gmail.com
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