New Delhi, April 22 -- Prosecutors in El Salvador opened a massive, joint trial of nearly 500 alleged members of the MS-13 gang on charges that include homicide, extortion and arms trafficking.

The trial, which opened Monday in San Salvador, is the latest in a practice that has been criticized by human rights groups as an infringement on the right of the accused to defend themselves. Such trials form part of President Nayib Bukele's iron-fist approach against criminal groups in El Salvador, which has been under a state of emergency for four years to fight organized crime.

"These mass trials lack basic guarantees of due process and thus they increase the risk of convicting innocent people who have nothing to do with the gangs that have t...