Bukele a role model in crime crackdown

E] Salvador's gang-busting President Nayib Bukele on Wednesday laid the foundation stone fora prisonin Costa Rica modelled on his own Cecot mega-jail that rights groups say is the setting for serious human rights abuses.

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Costa Rica's President Rodrigo Chaves, left, and El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele at a prison construction site in Alajuela, Costa Rica yesterday.AFP

(AFP)

At the ceremony in the capital San Jose, Mr Bukele urged the fellow Central American country notto hesitate to take tough action against organised crime, as he did.

“The problem will keep growing if it isn’t stopped, like a cancer... Now is the time to address crime,’ said Mr Bukele, on a visit ahead of presidential elections in Costa Rica that polls predict the ruling conservatives will win.

The penitentiary is being built to house the most dangerous criminals in a country that has seen a surge in gang violence and drug-related crime.