El Salvador police sentenced in nation’s first trans murder convictions

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07/30/2020

A court in El Salvador has sentenced three police officers to 20-year prison sentences for the murder of a transgender woman, the nation’s first convictions in a homicide case involving a trans victim. The verdict was a welcome development in the conservative Central American country, where gay and trans people face rampant discrimination and abuse, rights supporters said. A sentencing tribunal in the capital of San Salvador convicted the three officers of aggravated homicide this week for the killing of trans woman Camila Diaz in January 2019, according to the attorney general’s office. About 600 LGBT+ people have been murdered in El Salvador since 1993, according to advocacy group COMCAVIS Trans. But only 12 out of 109 LGBT+ murders between December 2014 and March 2017 went to trial, according to government data, and none ended in conviction. “It’s a landmark case for the rights of transgender Salvadorians,” said Cristian Gonzalez, a researcher at international advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

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