El Salvador’s police chief, who was among the most prominent figures in the so-called war on gangs, was killed when a helicopter crashed, along with police, military personnel, a Justice Department official and a fugitive arrested on drug abuse charges, officials said Monday. the authorities of the central American state.

Police Chief Mauricio Arrias was accompanying Manuel Cotto, the former head of a financial institution, accused of embezzlement, who was arrested yesterday Sunday in Honduras.

The two were boarded, along with other police officers, soldiers and an official, in an army helicopter, but it crashed in the San Eduardo sector, 180 kilometers northeast of the capital San Salvador, the armed forces said via X.

“We regret to announce the death of all those on board” the helicopter, they noted.

Police said that the deputy director of the criminal investigation department, Romulo Pompilio Romero, and a non-commissioned officer, Abel Antonio Arevalo, were also killed.

While according to Canal 10 television, the director of communications of the Ministry of Justice is also among the victims of the accident.

The cause of the crash is not yet clear. There were bad weather conditions in the area, there were rains before the accident.

Salvadoran President Naguib Bukele promised an “in-depth” investigation through X and added that he would seek “international assistance.”

President Bukele, very popular in his country because of the so-called war on gangs but criticized by human rights defenders, paid tribute to the police chief, stressing that he played a vital role in restoring “peace and security for the people us”.

“It wasn’t just any police director,” he said, handling “the plan for territorial control, the state of emergency and the war on gangs.” “We will investigate to the end, but nothing can bring back our national hero,” the head of state added.

Manuel Coto, a fugitive in Honduras, where he was arrested and handed over to Salvadoran police, was facing charges of embezzling $35 million when he was director of the COSAVI credit institution.

He was arrested while heading in cars, accompanied by a “people trafficker” to the US, Honduran Security Minister Gustavo Sanchez said.

On Sunday night, police director Ariasa went to the border of the two countries, in El Amatillo, to personally pick up the fugitive.

President Bukele, who began his second term in June after his triumphant re-election — unprecedented, until now the Constitution did not allow a head of state to seek a second consecutive term — remains extremely popular thanks mainly to the fight against the “maras » following the imposition of a state of emergency in March 2022, which remains in force from 2022 and notably allows arrests without warrants.

Nearly 82,000 people alleged to be gang members were sent to prison in about two and a half years. However, human rights organizations criticize the methods of Mr. Bukele’s government, denouncing the mass imprisonment of innocents, the dozens of deaths in custody, the wider prison conditions, and the blow to the rule of law.