Saab called the ruling “shameful” and a “delaying and evasive maneuver.”

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro echoed that frustration, saying “after 80 days, they respond to our communique to reaffirm … that they have kidnapped and hidden” 252 migrants.

Maduro also lashed out at El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, calling him “a monster” and “a Netanyahu,” referencing the Israeli Prime Minister.

The top court also gave a law firm hired by Caracas to defend the incarcerated migrants three days to provide more information to support a habeas corpus petition it filed at the end of March seeking their release.

The Venezuelans were expelled by the United States to El Salvador in March after being accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, a charge that their families and lawyers deny.

US President Donald Trump invoked rarely used wartime laws to fly migrants to the Central American nation without holding any court hearings.

Trump’s administration struck a deal to pay the government of his ally  Bukele millions of dollars to hold the deportees in prison.

Lawyers and supporters of the Venezuelans say they have been denied access to them in the high-security CECOT jail built by Bukele to house gang members.

The five members of the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber were appointed in 2021 by a Congress dominated by Bukele’s party.

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© Agence France-Presse