The files of Alejandro Muyshondt

A few weeks ago I wrote about the arrest and death in prison of Nayib Bukele’s national security adviser, Alejandro Muyshondt. New journalistic investigations have revealed secret recordings of conversations Muyshondt made on his phone about meetings with high-ranking officials in Bukele’s government. The officials include current Legislative Assembly Speaker Ernesto Castro, who was Bukele’s private secretary and closest adviser at the time of the recordings, and Xavier Zablah, the president’s nephew and leader of the Nuevas Ideas party. The recordings show that President Nayib Bukele’s closest advisers were conducting illegal spying on journalists and were aware of corrupt actors in the government and did nothing.

Investigative journalist Héctor Silva Ávalos revealed the existence of the recordings in new publications this week.

One of the revelations in the recordings is that Castro and Muyshondt had devised a plan to spy on journalists and politicians and hide it from the country’s attorney general:

(Raul Torres, a Muyshondt collaborator) also outlined the objectives. The information they gather, he said during the meeting, will be used to “create campaigns,” to “cut off” journalists’ contact with their sources and to “know when a report is being prepared.” The government’s biggest problem, Torres said, is the “leakage” of documents.

Before Castro approved the project, Alejandro Muyshondt asked that communications about it be compartmentalized and that other intelligence services in the state be excluded, such as the OIE (Office of State Intelligence), which the security adviser does not have a good opinion of. Here is part of that conversation:

-Alejandro Muyshondt: “Are you, me and the president going to handle this or…?”

-Ernesto Castro: “Yes.”

Muyshondt discussed with Xavier Zablah his concerns, shared by the US government, that Nayib Bukele may be too friendly with lawmaker Guillermo Gallegos, who has been under investigation by the US since 2014 for ties to drug traffickers.

This is part of one of the conversations with Zablah that Muyshondt recorded on his mobile phone:

-Alejandro Muyshondt: “I worked with the DEA… with the person in charge of the intelligence service. She told me: either your president protects Gallegos, or your president is behind Gallegos…”

-Xavier Zablah: “I know it and we know it…”

-AM: “I hope he keeps his distance, because that will cost us a very high political price…”

-XZ: “I know that.”

-AM: “Look, the gringos got a lot of shit on Gallegos, so much so that he has a big file on him at the USDNY (Southern District Attorney’s Office of New York)… They do the ‘jayanamente’ (shameless), they land in San Juan La Herradura… When they seized $1.2 million worth of drugs, who was the one who jumped? Gallegos jumped and talked to Chele (Mauricio) Arriaza (Chicas, police director), and threatened to fire him…”

-XZ: “Look, I like those things, asshole…”

In another recording, Muyshondt and Castro discuss their knowledge of the corruption ring in the country’s prisons, led by prison director Osiris Luna Meza and his mother:

– Alejandro Muyshondt: “There’s a huge mess in ASOCAMBIO (the prison commissariat system), tiger. Uncontrolled theft. They took away Jesús de la O, but the lady (mistress) is still there. And the Attorney General’s office is putting together a file on that shit. Osiris’ mother (Luna) started to gather certain groups of suppliers: “you give me the tamales and you give me I don’t know what” and there’s always a commission (of money) involved. This person, with Jesús de la O, was in that plan; (the prosecutors) are talking, they have a lot of things that the Attorney General’s office could take into account. They started making a lot of money out of nothing… That shit (the independent newspaper) El Faro already has indications of that…”

-Ernesto Castro: “…They have already positioned them well”

-Muyshondt: “And that is a bomb that can be very counterproductive if they drop it before the elections. It is a well-documented hit and it is very difficult to refute it and to create a smokescreen to get rid of such a hit…”

– Castro: “Yes.”

According to Silva’s reporting, Muyshondt had multiple meetings outside El Salvador with U.S. Justice Department and DEA officials, where he discussed Gallegos. Muyshondt knew he could be killed as a result. U.S. federal law enforcement sources told the reporter that they warned Muyshondt that he should leave the country.

Silva also published a report on the circumstances of Muyshondt’s arrest and subsequent death in state custody. Many of the details of his mistreatment in the hospital system had already been revealed in the RevistaFactum investigation and documentary. Silva provides new information, including that Muyshondt was beaten and tortured immediately after his arrest. A bloody article of clothing was returned to a relative after his arrest. Police and the attorney general searched and ransacked Muyshondt’s home and the residences of his family, while authorities searched for computer files and other evidence belonging to the national security adviser.

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You can read Silva’s full research in Spanish at these sites and listen to the audio recordings:

Ropa ensangrentada, a police organization and a hombre vegetable lamado Alejandro Muyshondt, Prensa Comunitaria Kilómetro 169

El Salvador: Alejandro Muyshondt, the asesor of Nayib Bukele, die demasiado en terminó muerto, Prensa Comunitaria Kilómetro 169

The audio revealing the oscura trama that preceded the muerte of Alejandro Muyshondt, the asesor of Nayib Bukele who was demasiado, Infobae

El Faro, whose journalists were targeted in the espionage plan Castro and Muyshondt had agreed upon, also published its own article focusing on the recordings Silva had first published and providing some additional context. Salvadoran Presidential Office Ordered Spying on Journalists and Political Opponents

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Normally, the Bukele regime and its allies are completely silent about investigations into government misconduct. They don’t deny the reports, they simply ignore them to let the stories die and to avoid making statements that can still be proven false. And until yesterday, that was the case with everything to do with Muyshondt.

Yesterday, the President of the Legislative Assembly, Ernesto Castro, whose voice is prominently heard in Muyshondt’s recordings, gave statements to the press in response to Silva’s articles.

#Plenaria| The president of the @AsambleaSVErnesto Castro, rest of the credibility of the investigation @infobae If you do this, no response will be devoted to an independent agenda in your opposite direction. photo.twitter.com/aU4FmkTVsG

— Revista GatoEncerrado (@GatoEncerradoSV) September 17, 2024

Castro claimed that it was easy to falsify voices on recordings using artificial intelligence, and said that Infobae had even written an article about creating “deep fakes” with AI. He attacked Silva as a “political operator of Mauricio Funes” who was being investigated by the attorney general for receiving “sobresueldos” during the Funes government. Castro claimed that these articles were attacks by the same media that always attacks the Legislative Assembly and that the Salvadoran people knew who was really on their side.

Castro’s comments were subsequently reposted on social media by the Legislative Assembly’s official account on X, perhaps showing an additional level of concern from Castro about this story. Meanwhile, Nayib Bukele and Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado remain completely silent on the subject, and government news outlets are ignoring the story.

Silva responded to X on Castro’s statements:

This is the key sentence: He is not responding. He knows it is his voice. He knows what he was talking about with Alejandro Muyshondt and what he was asking of him. He is doing what they have been doing since this government began: attacking the press to prevent them from responding to evidence that is in reality unanswerable.

It is possible (though perhaps unlikely) that we will receive additional information from El Salvador’s response to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, part of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Special Rapporteur sent a letter to the Salvadoran government on 11 July expressing concern about the reports of Muyshondt’s arrest, the secrecy surrounding his detention and medical care, and his subsequent death in state custody. The letter requested answers to a series of questions about the reasons for his detention, the lack of information provided to his family, and his care during his detention. According to the Rapporteur’s website, a response from the Salvadoran government was received on 5 September but had not yet been made public.

El Faro concluded an editorial on Muyshondt’s revelations as follows:

Muyshondt was isolated and tortured in the regime’s prisons. There he died, devoured by the system of impunity and the mafia he also helped to strengthen. A mafia that continues to persecute critics and opponents while protecting allies profiled by its own police as drug traffickers and corrupt officials. This mafia, which today controls the Salvadoran present, intends to take over our future.