Peru's visiting president impressed by El Salvador megaprison

Peru's conservative President Keiko Fujimori visited El Salvador's maximum-security gangs prison, the CECOT, on 29 October, later telling a joint press conference with President Nayib Bukele that she would build a similar one in her own country. She said she was impressed by CECOT's unique features including strict isolation for prisoners and a vegetarian diet, the Salvadoran paper El Mundo reported. Measures like "zero visits, zero communications" were "very strong,even drastic," but effective in stopping gangsters from pursuing criminal activities while in jail. Gangsters, she said, must be redefined as hostile elements or terrorists to allow the army to join the police in fighting organized crime. The two leaders signed agreements in principle to boost cooperation in crime fighting and related legislation, and technical exchanges, elsalvador.com reported. Bukele separately said Salvadoran troops currently in Haiti would remain until four technicans thought to be held by local gangs were freed alive. This was no invasion, he said, and his forces would leave within hours of their release but he warned, they would be freed "one way or another."