El Salvador president disputes alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego García prison torture claims

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has refuted claims made by US deportee and alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who said he was beaten and psychologically tortured while imprisoned in the Central American country.

Bukele denied Abrego Garcia’s allegations in a Thursday post on X in which he included photos and videos of the prisoner in a detention cell, where appeared to live a vacation lifestyle in custody –apparently contradicting the claims in his bombastic legal filing.

“Apparently, anything a criminal claims is accepted as truth by the mainstream media and the crumbling Western judiciary,” Bukele wrote.

“But the man wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight. In fact, photos show he gained weight while in detention,” the president argued in the post.

“If he’d been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture? Why would he gain weight? Why are there no bruises, or even dark circles under his eyes?”

The video shared in the post shows a montage of Abrego Garcia partaking in a number of leisure activities including chess, reading, exercising, gardening, and soccer.

Apparent security footage from inside his cell shows a small bed, a gallon jug of clean water, a fan, and a nicely sized television mounted on the wall.

At one point in the video, Abrego Garcia adoringly looks at a parakeet that has landed on his finger.

There are also several still images of Abrego Garcia, who reported a health condition, receiving a blood pressure test.

It is not immediately clear whether these videos and photos are from Salvador’s Super Max Prison CECOT — where Abrego Garcia claimed he suffered physical and psychological torture.

The former prisoner claimed in court documents filed Wednesday that he was kicked and hit with regularity while in lock-up at CECOT.

Prisoners are “confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remain on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation,” he claimed in the filings.

In a particularly bad instance, Abrego Garcia and 20 other prisoners were forced to kneel on the ground all night long and guards beat whoever fell over, he claimed in the filing.

The new allegations were included as part of the Salvadoran national’s lawsuit against the Trump administration filed by Abrego Garcia’s wife.

The controversial so-called “Maryland man’s” second exit from the country was delayed by a federal judge in Tennessee earlier this week — but the Trump administration has maintained they will eventually deport him to a third country, not to El Salvador.