Mapuche activist Facundo Jones Huala released from Chilean prison

Chile's Supreme Court decided last Friday to release Mapuche leader Facundo Jones Huala. Jones Huala's nine-year prison sentence ended on June 14, but he remained incarcerated beyond that date, which the court deemed “illegal detention.”

Although Jones Huala has been released from prison, he will remain in hospital in Chile for the time being. His health is currently precarious due to a 47-day hunger strike that he recently ended.

According to the ruling, his detention lasted longer than expected and there was no legal justification for keeping him in prison. “This not only violates international treaties, but is also illegal,” the ruling states.

“Taking into account the fact that the prisoner returned to prison on January 4, 2024 to serve the remainder of his sentence, the sentence was served on June 14, 2024,” said the ruling, which was issued in response to legal protection requested by his defense.

The Supreme Court acknowledged that there had been “discrepancies” regarding the length of time calculated by the judiciary that Jones Huala must serve in Chile. On Friday, his Argentine lawyer Gustavo Franquet told Bariloche radio: Radio Seis that a “miscalculation” – allegedly on the part of the Chilean military police – had indicated that he should have remained behind bars until June 2025.

After his release from the hospital, Jones Huala will be able to return to Argentina. If he decides to stay in Chile after his release, Jones Huala would have to wait for permission from the Chilean judiciary.

According to Franquet, Jones Huala is still very weak as a result of his hunger strike, but will leave the hospital “as soon as he feels better.”

In 2018, a criminal court in the Chilean city of Valdivia convicted Jones Huala of arson in a 2013 attack on a farm and of illegal possession of weapons. While serving most of his sentence, he fled Chile under house arrest in February 2022. He was on the run for nearly a year before being arrested on January 30, 2023, in the Argentine city of El Bolsón, in Río Negro province.

In February 2023, the Chilean judiciary ruled that Jones Huala could serve the last year and four months of his sentence in Chile, and Argentina accepted the decision. Jones Huala was at that time in an Argentine prison, where he spent the rest of the year until he was finally extradited to Chile on January 4. He was transferred to Temuco prison, where he served his remaining six months.

At the end of June, Jones Huala began a hunger strike – refusing to eat solid food to protest his detention. On July 17, he was hospitalized but continued his hunger strike, which lasted a total of 47 days.

Last week, days after learning that his brother, Fausto Jones Huala, was found dead on August 1, Jones Huala changed his protest and began eating solid food. This time, he refused to drink liquids that he had previously consumed. According to his lawyer, he did not want to burden his family with his poor health after the recent deaths of his brother and his grandmother, who died in June.

The activist's mother, María Isabel Huala, said in a video posted on her social media accounts that Fausto had decided to “take his own life” and blamed the Argentine and Chilean authorities for his decision, attributing it to the “persecution” her family had suffered in recent years.