RICHARD Madeley has visited El Salvador’s brutal “living death” mega-prison, where lifeless cells packed to the rafters with thousands of skin-headed cartel killers.
The broadcaster comes face to face with some of the world’s most violent criminals and cannot contain his shock at the horrific jail conditions in an upcoming Channel 5 show.
Madeley lifts the lid on conditions inside the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where alleged mass murderers can be seen stacked from floor to ceiling on uncomfortable metal beds.
The £85million mega jail has become the key component of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s war on drug cartels and Donald Trump-sanctioned deportations from the US.
Madeley has now been given rare access to the Tecoluca facility for the documentary “Inside the World’s Mega Prison“.
He is taken inside a huge unit which he comments looks like an “aircraft hangar”, where the lights are on 24/7 and prisoners receive no family visits.
The Good Morning Britain host comments on the eery silence and acknowledges the dystopian conditions.
“Whatever reason the men are here, we accept that they’re very, very dangerous criminals. This is a terrible sight,” Madeley remarks.
“It plucks at the heart.”
Madeley also comments on the distinct sense of boredom the inmates must feel.
He said: “Nothing absolutely nothing, can prepare you for the sight of 3,000 shaven-headed men crammed behind floor-to-ceiling bars. No doors. No screening.
“They sit there in permanently open view through the bars, on tiers of metal bunks four-high – no mattresses, just thin cotton sheets – staring out. It’s one hell of a sight.
Prisoners have “absolutely nothing to do” while in their cells.
There are no books, cards, TV, or letters from home for the inmates, who are also forbidden from having visitors.
Madeley added: “All meals must be taken in their cells, inside which they spend 23 and a half hours every day, with just 30 minutes outside for brief, heavily-guarded exercise.
“They just sit on their bunks, day in, day out, and the prison lights stay on 24/7, never dimmed. All will die in this prison. It’s a living death.”
Madeley said he saw horrifying videos the inmates had made and posted online to terrorise the outside world – including mass machete executions of road workers.
He also said it was difficult to build a rapport with suspicious prison authorities.
He said: “I had to convince them we were visiting Cecot with completely open minds, but my questions about the harshness of conditions there nearly got us thrown out on day one.
“Fortunately, I managed to persuade them of the truth – I was there to report without fear or favour, or agenda.
And my thoughts about Cecot most definitely changed the longer I was in El Salvador and the more I learned about what the gangsters imprisoned there had done to ordinary people.
“These criminals were without doubt sadistic, psychotic, psychopathic murderers and rapists.”
As part of the documentary, Madeley visited rough urban areas where gangs still exist.
He said he “could not find a single person who wasn’t overjoyed that the gangsters who brutally controlled every aspect of life in El Salvador are now permanently behind bars”.
Madeley said that now about 80 per cent of the gangs that used to terrorise the streets are either in Cecot or have fled to Mexico or Venezuela.
He added: “Although it’s not remotely as dangerous as a few years ago, you have to watch your back and keep moving.
“Walls riddled with bullet holes where once men were lined up and shot on a daily basis are a useful reminder to stay on your toes.”
Madeley admitted there was “no question” that Cecot breached human rights, in response to campaigners speaking out about its conditions.
But he added: “The more difficult question is whether El Salvador had any alternative if it wanted to wrest control back from the psychopaths who had terrorised the general population for decades.
“And Cecot certainly demonstrates that however you choose to run your jails, whatever the rules and protocols you decide are appropriate, you can enforce them. You just need the will – and the leadership – to do it.”
Madely also considered whether the UK’s beleaguered prison system could learn any lessons from El Salvador.
He said: “I think Cecot is probably a unique, brutally bespoke solution to the horrors that plagued ordinary El Salvadorians for so long.
“But I do believe there are lessons we can learn and apply to repair our own broken prison system.
“Namely, that once you’ve agreed on the level of security and punishment and deterrence you want from it, you can achieve consistent results.
“You just need the application and determination to do it.”
Last month, hundreds of alleged members of a notorious gang faced a mass trial in El Salvador charged with thousands of crimes.
Defendants were accused of more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, including an estimated 29,000 murders.
El Salvador’s court system said the trial included “members of the national leadership, street-level leaders, program coordinators from across the country, and founders of” MS-13.
The gang’s leadership is accused of slaughtering 87 people in a single weekend in March 2022.
The killings prompted President Bukele to declare a “war” on the country’s street gangs which he said controlled 80 per cent of Salvadoran territory.
MS-13 is charged with the crime of rebellion “because they sought to… establish a parallel state,” the Attorney General’s Office said.
MS-13 and the rival Barrio 18 gang operate drug trafficking rings and extortion rackets across Central America.
Bukele has accused them of murdering 200,000 people over three decades, including about 80,000 who disappeared without trace.
The president imposed a state of emergency in 2022, which has been used to arrest more than 91,000 suspected gang members, including thousands of people who were later declared innocent.
The campaign, which has seen Bukele’s popularity ratings surge, has resulted in a dramatic drop in crime.
In just a few years El Salvador has transformed from one of Latin America’s most dangerous countries to one of its safest.
Last year Bukele announced plans to double the size of Cecot, to house up to 80,000 inmates.
The sprawling site was initially opened in 2023 to house up to a whopping 40,000 inmates.
Richard Madeley: Inside the World’s Mega Prison, Channel 5 on May 27 at 9pm
