Mapuche leader Facundo Jones Huala is extradited from Argentina to Chile

First modification: 01/04/2024 – 16:43Last modification: 01/04/2024 – 16:41

1 min

“Today the leader of the RAM (Mapuche Ancestral Resistance) will be extradited to Chile from the Chubut city of Esquel to continue complying with Chilean justice,” declared Argentine presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni.

The operation was carried out by Interpol, the Argentine Federal Police and the Airport Security Police. The activist was serving his sentence in the prison of Esquel, an Argentine city at the foot of the Andes mountain range.

In 2018, The Chilean Justice found Jones Huala, 37 years old and of Argentine nationality, guilty of possession of firearms and setting fire to the house of the caretaker of a ranch in the Los Ríos regionin southern Chile, crimes committed in 2013. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, although the sentence was later reduced to six years.

After serving two-thirds of his sentence, a Court of Appeals had granted him conditional release, but in February 2022 the Supreme Court of Chile ordered his imprisonment again. As a result, Interpol launched a blue arrest alert, since his whereabouts were unknown.

In January 2023, Argentine authorities found the activist inside a home in La Esperanza, Chubut, near the Andes foothills, where he was detained once again and transferred.

The Federal Court of the Argentine city of San Carlos de Bariloche declared Huala's extradition to Chile to serve the remaining years of the sentence imposed by the Chilean courts.

The defense of the Mapuche leader appealed that resolution, but the Attorney General of Argentina confirmed the sentence. In November of last year the Supreme Court also did so.

Last December, while he was detained, Jones Huala carried out a dry hunger strike for 25 days demanding his freedom and rejecting his extradition to Chilewhich finally took place this morning.

(AFP)