(Reuters) – Former Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes died late Tuesday in Nicaragua, where the leftist leader had lived since 2016 to avoid corruption charges in his country. He was 65 years old.
Nicaraguan authorities confirmed the death of Funes, who was president of El Salvador from 2009 to 2014, in a statement on the government's official website.
The statement said that Funes died of a “serious chronic illness” without providing further details.
He fled El Salvador for Nicaragua nearly a decade ago, after El Salvador prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into alleged corruption charges, resulting in five arrest warrants being issued against him.
Funes was born in San Salvador in October 1959. He taught in Catholic schools after graduating from the Jesuit University of Central America with a degree in literature, before gaining fame as an award-winning journalist.
He started out as a war correspondent and was a CNN correspondent, but became famous for his in-depth interviews with politicians and exposing corruption on the popular interview show.
After two decades in journalism, Funes retired to run for the presidency in 2009 for the former left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, which was formed during the country's 1979-1992 civil war.
The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front was a cornerstone of Salvadoran politics for decades before President Nayib Bukele's New Ideas Party disrupted the country's two-party system and took control of all branches of government.
During Funes' five-year term, he developed various social, educational, and health programs, but his administration was marred by a negotiated gang agreement, in which his administration granted gang leaders benefits in exchange for decreased homicides.
By the end of his term in 2014, Funes faced numerous legal proceedings for embezzling millions, receiving bribes, money laundering, paying bribes, tax evasion, and disclosing confidential documents.
He described these accusations as political persecution from the Salvadoran right and fled in 2016 to Nicaragua with his family. Funes obtained Nicaraguan citizenship, which protects him from extradition.
In May 2023, Bukele's administration, accused of making deals with gangs such as MS-13, sentenced him to 14 years in prison in absentia over the gang's agreement.
Funes often argued on social media with Bukele.
In 2014, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, remained in power. But in 2019, the populist, authoritarian-leaning Bukele won a landslide election victory, in what was largely seen as a resounding repudiation of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. In last year's congressional elections, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front did not win a single seat.
Sanchez Cerén is also currently in exile in Nicaragua.
