Former President of El Salvador Mauricio Funes died Tuesday at the age of 65 in Nicaragua, where he had taken refuge to escape the justice of his country, Nicaraguan authorities announced.
The man who was the first left-wing president of El Salvador, between 2009 and 2014, succumbed to “a serious chronic illness,” said the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health in a press release.
He fled to Nicaragua in 2016 after being accused of embezzling $351 million during his term in office. Three years later, the socialist government of Daniel Ortega granted him Nicaraguan nationality, closing the door to any possibility of extradition.
In May 2023, Mauricio Funes was sentenced in absentia in El Salvador to 14 years in prison for belonging to an illegal group and dereliction of duty, for having negotiated a truce with the “maras”, the criminal gangs which terrorized the country.
-In June 2024, Salvadoran justice also sentenced him to eight years in prison for awarding a public contract for the construction of a bridge to a Guatemalan company in exchange for a private plane, according to the prosecution.
Five criminal proceedings were still underway in El Salvador against him on the day of his death.
