Buenos Aires, Jan 4 (EFE).- Argentina on Thursday extradited Mapuche Indigenous activist Facundo Jones Huala, leader of the Mapuche Ancestral Resistance, to Chile, where he will serve the remainder of the sentence handed down by a criminal court in the Chilean city of Valdivia.
“The leader of the so-called Mapuche Ancestral Resistance, Jones Huala, will be extradited from the city of Esquel in Chubut to Chile to serve the remainder of the sentence imposed on him by the Chilean justice system,” said the spokesman for the Argentine presidency, Manuel Adorni, at a press conference, without giving further details of the operation “for security reasons.”
Jones Huala, 37 years old and an Argentine national, is the only known member of the anonymous Mapuche Ancestral Resistance, an Indigenous organization that uses violent methods such as arson and armed attacks against police to reclaim the ancestral lands of the Mapuche Indigenous People in the southern tip of Argentina and Chile.
Jones Huala rose to prominence in 2015 when he began fighting Benetton, the Italian clothing brand known for its multiracial advertising campaigns, which owns 9,000 square kilometers of land and 100,000 wool-producing sheep in the Argentine Patagonia claimed by the Mapuches.
He was convicted in Chile in 2018 for crimes committed in 2013, including arson and illegal possession of a homemade firearm.
Four years later, on Jan. 21, 2022, he was granted parole, but the decision was revoked on Feb. 15 of the same year.
Since Jones Huala did not appear before the Chilean courts, the Chilean justice system declared him guilty in absentia and issued a warrant for his arrest.
Finally, on Jan. 30, 2023, the Mapuche activist was arrested again in Argentina. EFE
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