MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Jones-Huala extradited yet again to Chile

Jones Huala might be just months from being released in Chile

Mapuche rebel Facundo Jones Huala was extradited Thursday for a second time in his life from Argentina to Chile to serve out the remainder of his prison sentence for a 2013 arson attack. Jones Huala was escorted across the Andes by Interpol and law enforcement officers from both countries.

The 37-year-old Argentine member of the Mapuche Armed Resistance (RAM) was convicted on Dec. 21, 2018, by a court in Valdivia, of arson plus the illegal possession of a handmade firearm. Jones Huala was extradited for the first time to Chile in September 2018 to stand trial for his crimes. He had been arrested in Argentina at the request of Chilean authorities.

On Jan. 21, 2022, he was granted parole when the Temuco Court of Appeals appraised his ”good conduct“ as an inmate but the decision was revoked on Feb. 15 by the Supreme Court.

After failing to return to his detention center, an arrest warrant was issued against the fugitive, who is now one year, four months, and 17 days from completing his prison sentence. He was recaptured on Jan. 30, 2023, in the town of El Bolsón, in the southern Argentine province of Río Negro, in a visible state of drunkenness, according to witnesses. Given the time spent again in the Argentine penitentiary system, he might be just a few months from release.

Mapuche sources said Jones Huala will be taken to a detention control hearing in Valdivia, after which the authorities will decide the facility where the inmate is to spend the rest of his term. Jones Huala was also said to be “stable” and with a “high morale” because “they have not been able to break us,” the Mapuche sources added.

Last December, while housed at Chubut's Unit 14 detention center, Jones Huala staged a 25-day hunger strike to demand his freedom and to reject his extradition to Chile where he was originally given a nine-year sentence for burning a house in Pisu Pisué and threatening a family with firearms. It was then reduced to 6 years because of time served at Esquel's federal prison pending his first extradition.