Family members the Santa Marta 5, a group of prominent anti-mining leaders in El Salvador, have formally filed a complaint against the judges of the San Vicente Sentencing Court for repeatedly postponing the delivery of the final written ruling confirming the acquittal of the defendants in an on-going legal battle.

The complaint against the judges was filed with the Judicial Investigation Directorate of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) on January 20, 2026, and adds to a series of public actions undertaken by the families, organizations, and human rights groups to demand the definitive closure of the judicial process against the water defenders.

The Santa Marta 5 were arbitrarily detained on January 11, 2023 in a process widely denounced as political persecution; the community leaders had been sounding the alarm over indications that the Nayib Bukele government was seeking to overturn El Salvador’s 2017 ban on metal mining, the first and only in the world. They were imprisoned for eight months while awaiting trial and subsequently placed under house arrest, a measure that was granted only after pressure from national and international human rights organizations and elected officials.

In December of 2025, El Salvador’s legislature, dominated by Bukele’s New Ideas party, did, in fact, overturn the law prohibiting mining in the country.

During the three years since their arrest, the Attorney General's Office has failed to present sufficient evidence to support its charges that the five had kidnapped and murdered a Santa Marta woman, María Inés Alvarenga, who disappeared in 1989 towards the end of El Salvador's civil war. The defendants were acquitted of all charges in October 2024; however, in November 2024, the Cojutepeque Criminal Chamber overturned the dismissal of the charges and allowed the Attorney General to pursue a retrial in a new jurisdiction.

When the second trial concluded in September 2025, the San Vicente Sentencing Court reached the same conclusion in its oral ruling, acquitting the defendants of criminal charges. However, the same court has since delayed delivering its final, written ruling four times, unjustifiably prolonging the judicial process and leaving the case without definitive closure.

On January 9, the judges once again postponed the delivery of the written ruling until January 30, a decision that the families believe could constitute a delay of justice in violation to the principle of "prompt and fair justice" and keeps a process indefinitely open that already has two acquittal rulings.

In the document they submitted to the Supreme Court of Justice, the families of the defendants requested an investigation into the repeated delays, which have prevented the sentence from becoming final. Without a written ruling, the procedural deadlines for either a possible appeal or the definitive closure of the case cannot commence.

Milton Rivas, son of Pedro Antonio Rivas, one of the defendants, explained to the media that the judges "have been delaying the final ruling" and that the complaint filed seeks to demand justice for his family members. "We are not asking for anything, nor have we come to beg for anything; we have come to demand justice, because it is unacceptable that it takes them about five months to submit a document that they could have delivered the same day the hearing ended," he declared.

A week prior, social movement and human rights groups, community representatives, and family members of the defendants denounced the court's stall tactic during a press conference on January 13. Rivas, joined by community leader Alfredo Leiva, stated that the failure to deliver the written ruling has both prolonged the legal uncertainty and kept the defendants, their families, and the community in a constant state of anxiety.  “This delay keeps our family members in a situation of constant anguish and constitutes a denial of justice,” they declared.

The families warned that, once the final ruling is delivered, the Public Prosecutor's Office could still appeal the decision again, opening the possibility of a third trial against the environmentalists, despite the lack of evidence against them. Therefore, the families called on the Attorney General's Office to refrain from appealing and allow the case to be definitively closed, guaranteeing the full freedom of the environmentalists.

A representative of the University Movement for Critical Thought also warned of a broader context of increasing persecution and criminalization in the country. Currently, at least 38 human rights, environmental, labor, and political activists remain imprisoned, while human rights defenders and community journalists continue to report receiving threats, police harassment, and intimidation campaigns against them.

“We demand an immediate end to [this] persecution and respect for the right to defend the environment, to inform, and to organize,” the organizations stated, issuing an urgent call to Salvadoran society and the international community to remain vigilant given the risk of additional arbitrary arrests targeting critical voices and community organizing efforts.

Finally, they reported that a permanent vigil is being held in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador every day starting at six in the evening, as a peaceful act of protest and a demand for justice, freedom, and respect for human rights.