Barrientos, who was a fugitive from justice, was arrested on October 5 in a roadblock in the city of Deltona, Florida, and taken into the custody by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He will be extradited to Chile on November 28 on a direct flight from Miami.
In 2016, a federal court in Florida found Barrientos guilty of torture and assassination of the singer-songwriter, after a case was opened by Jara’s widow, and his two daughters.
The former officer was prosecuted in Chile in 2012 as the material author of the crime.
According to human rights attorney Nelson Caucoto, acting as plaintiff in the process representing the musician’s family, Barrientos’s arrest will allow complying with the last pending stage in the trial.
Caucoto added that the Minister of the Court of Appeals of Santiago must reopen the chapter related to Barrientos, whom he temporarily dismissed years ago because he was still at large in the United States.
“Barrientos must be sentenced just as the other soldiers in the case were. We hope that this process is as expeditious as possible so that this chapter can be closed for good, so that Víctor (Jara) can finally rest in peace,” the lawyer noted recently.
Víctor Jara was arrested by the military on September 12, 1973, one day after the coup d’état led by Augusto Pinochet against the Government of Salvador Allende, and taken to the Chile Stadium along with hundreds of people. Four days later, his body was found near the Metropolitan Cemetery with signs of torture and 44 gunshot wounds.
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