In the post on X, Bukele writes that Ábrego García was neither tortured nor lost weight – and publishes pictures and videos of him in a prison cell.
"If he was tortured, deprived of sleep and starved, why does he look so healthy in all the pictures?", the president writes.
Describes abuse
The statement comes after Ábrego García in documents submitted to a court on Wednesday described how he, among other things, was kicked and beaten so hard upon arrival that he got bruises and bumps all over his body, and that he and several other detainees were forced to stand on their knees on the floor all night – and how guards hit those who fell apart from fatigue.
Kilmar Ábrego García was wrongly deported by the Trump administration to the notorious prison in El Salvador in March this year, a case that has received enormous attention.
In the new court documents, he states that the prisoners had to sleep in metal bunk beds without mattresses, in an overcrowded, windowless cell where strong lamps were on around the clock. The documents are part of a lawsuit that Ábrego García's wife has filed against the Trump administration.
Arrested
Ábrego García was taken back to the US from El Salvador on June 7 and was arrested on suspicion of human smuggling. The charge is based on an incident in 2022, when he was stopped for speeding and was suspected of transporting undocumented migrants to other parts of the country.
The investigation against him began in April this year.
Ábrego García, who was born in El Salvador, entered the US illegally in 2011. He was arrested but received a form of residence permit in 2019 when an immigration judge decided that he could not be sent back to his home country due to threats from criminal gangs. He is married to a US citizen.
