El Salvador Corruption Case: Ex-Minister Sent to Trial Over Road Payments
EL SALVADOR · JUSTICE
Key Facts
- —The country El Salvador, a small Central American country that uses the US dollar, has been led by Nayib Bukele since 2019.
- —Why it matters Antonio Saca, president from 2004 to 2009 for the right-wing ARENA party, got 10 years for corruption in 2018.
- —What happened A court ruling reported on 18 September sends Saca’s public works minister, David Gutiérrez Miranda, to trial for embezzlement.
- —The numbers Prosecutors say his failures caused US$10.6 million in undue payments to a builder on a 3.9-kilometre road section.
- —What it means for you The case tests courts whose independence rights groups have questioned since 2021 and the IMF has flagged.
- —Still open No arrest had been reported by 29 September, and the trial cannot start until he appears in court.
An El Salvador corruption case over a road Diario El Mundo calls a symbol of corruption is heading to trial. A San Salvador court has sent David Gutiérrez Miranda, public works minister under former president Antonio Saca, to trial for embezzlement.
The ruling, reported on Friday 18 September, came from the Fifth Investigating Court of San Salvador, which screens evidence before trial. The judge ordered his arrest for failing to answer the court, and none had been reported by Tuesday 29 September.
What the court decided
The ruling followed a preliminary hearing, the stage at which a judge decides whether the evidence justifies a full trial. The judge weighed the evidence offered by the parties and set what may be used at trial, Diario1 reported.
The charge is peculado, the Salvadoran offence of embezzling or misusing public money. No court has ruled on guilt, and Gutiérrez is presumed innocent until a trial court decides.
Infobae cited a social-media post by Centros Judiciales, the judiciary’s official account. It said the case moves to trial once Gutiérrez appears before Salvadoran courts, and the arrest warrant remains in force.
What prosecutors allege in the El Salvador corruption case
The Attorney General’s Office, known as the FGR, says the acts took place between December 2005 and January 2007. Gutiérrez then ran the Ministry of Public Works, which oversaw the design and building of the road’s second section.
The contract gave the builder 420 days to finish the work, according to the charge. The deadline passed with the road unfinished, although the monthly payments to the company had been made, Diario1 reported.
In 2023 the FGR said the works were only 39% complete when half the contract time had passed. A financial audit in the case puts the state’s alleged loss at US$10,643,278.98, Infobae and Diario El Mundo reported.
“He had the obligation and the legal duty” to see the road built in 420 days, a prosecutor said in 2023. The FGR said it would seek repayment through civil liability, El Diario de Hoy reported.
A road that cost twice its first contracts
The Diego de Holguín boulevard runs through Santa Tecla, beside the capital, San Salvador. It was renamed after Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero during the presidency of Mauricio Funes, Diario1 reported.
Work began in 2005 in two sections, Infobae reported. The first, almost four kilometres, was contracted for US$20.7 million and finished in December 2007 after delays.
The second, 3.9 kilometres long, was contracted for more than US$25.6 million. It was abandoned in late 2008 after delays and an arbitration case that cost the state further millions of dollars.
The ministry took back the unfinished stretch in 2011 and gave a US$33.1 million contract to the firms DISA and OMNI. The main concrete lanes were finished on 14 November 2012.
Press tallies at the time put the whole 8.63 kilometres at US$99.4 million, arbitration included. That is more than double the two original contracts, which together came to just over US$46.3 million.
An earlier conviction over the road that did not stand
Gutiérrez is not the first minister tried over the boulevard. In November 2019 a court gave his successor, Jorge Nieto, 12 years in prison, Diario1 and Co Latino reported.
The court found that Nieto let a builders’ consortium draw state money for work it had not done, Co Latino reported. Three co-defendants got suspended three-year sentences, and a former deputy minister, Sigfredo Ochoa, was acquitted, Diario1 reported.
In April 2020 the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber ordered Nieto freed, finding that his right to a defence had been violated. It said an inspection and valuation of the second section had been done without his defence taking part, Diario El Mundo reported.
In July 2020 an appeals court quashed his sentence and the repayment order, Diario El Mundo and ContraPunto reported. It also overturned the co-defendants’ sentences, and whether prosecutors appealed further could not be independently confirmed.
The consortium named in the 2022 charge against Gutiérrez was a joint venture, Copreca Linares, according to Diario El Mundo. Separately, the Court of Accounts, the state auditor, upheld on appeal a US$3.2 million liability ruling against ex-officials, Infobae reported.
How the case reached this point
Then attorney general Raúl Melara confirmed in December 2019 that Gutiérrez was under investigation. “He was one of the first involved, he approved the tender,” Melara said, Co Latino reported.
The FGR filed charges in January 2022, putting the loss at about US$13.7 million. A later financial audit lowered it to US$10.6 million, the figure now used.
That month a lower court let Gutiérrez stay free during the investigation, without restrictions. Neither he nor his lawyers attended that hearing, Diario El Mundo reported.
Prosecutors asked the Fifth Investigating Court to send him to trial at a hearing in June 2024, Diario1 reported. Reports do not explain why the decision came only in September 2026.
Why the case draws attention
Bukele won the presidency in 2019 as a break from the traditional parties, weakened by corruption scandals, VOA reported. “They promised to get rid of all of the corrupt,” a Bukele supporter in San Salvador told VOA in 2021.
Gutiérrez served under Saca, who in 2018 became the first Salvadoran ex-president of the democratic era sentenced for corruption. Saca admitted diverting and laundering more than US$300 million and was ordered to repay US$260 million, BBC Mundo and DW reported.
Critics question how independent the courts now are. On 1 May 2021 Bukele’s new majority in congress removed the attorney general and the Supreme Court’s five constitutional judges, VOA reported.
Governing-party lawmakers said the court had put private interests above the people’s health, while the opposition called it a power grab. Bukele said the session was the beginning of the change he had promised, VOA reported.
Human Rights Watch says laws passed in September 2021 have been used to dismiss or reassign independent judges and prosecutors. The current attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado, was appointed in the 2021 overhaul and re-elected in December 2024, it notes.
What is not yet known
Reports do not say where Gutiérrez is, or whether a lawyer is contesting the charge for him. No public statement from him on the September ruling has been reported.
Accounts of when he left office also differ. El Diario de Hoy and Co Latino say his term ended in December 2006, yet the charge runs to January 2007.
What comes next
The El Salvador corruption case can go to trial only once Gutiérrez appears before the courts, and no date has been published. A trial court would then hear the evidence the investigating judge admitted.
The ruling does not mean Gutiérrez is guilty; it means a judge found enough evidence for a trial. Nor does the audit figure show that US$10.6 million was stolen, as the charge concerns failures of oversight and undue payments.
The ruling lands as El Salvador’s election formally begins, with candidate registration opening on Thursday 1 October. Voters choose a president, congress and local councils on Sunday 28 February 2027.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Diego de Holguín road in El Salvador?
It is an 8.63-kilometre boulevard through Santa Tecla, beside San Salvador, now called the Monseñor Romero boulevard. Its second section was abandoned in 2008 and only finished in 2012.
Who is David Gutiérrez Miranda?
He was El Salvador’s public works minister under President Antonio Saca of the right-wing ARENA party. Prosecutors charge him with embezzlement over payments made between December 2005 and January 2007.
Will he be tried in his absence?
Reports say the case moves to trial once he appears before the courts, and a judge has ordered his arrest. No trial date has been published.
Why do foreign investors follow cases like this?
They show how El Salvador’s courts handle high-profile cases. Human Rights Watch says the IMF links concerns over judicial independence to the country’s credit rating.
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