The Associated Press, Chile | World | Mon, March 25 2013, 7:00 AM
Members of Chile's largest indigenous community attended a traditional funeral on Saturday for an emblematic Mapuche Indian chief who was once convicted under an anti-terrorism law.
Pascual Pichun was found in his truck Wednesday after suffering a heart attack.
About 500 people attended his funeral. In an emotional ceremony, his family and friends cried over his coffin, while others gathered in a circle around them playing traditional instruments and chanting in their native Mapudungun tongue.
Pichun was the leader of the community of Antonio Niripil de Temulemu in Traiguen near the southern city of Temuco.
He was tried under a dictatorship-era law in 2004, accused of an arson attack. Pichun was finally convicted of a charge of threats of terrorism and was released after four years.
Pichun always said he was wrongly convicted and his case is before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The Mapuche are often pitted against landowners and the timber industry in the Araucania region that they call their usurped ancestral land.
Source: The Jakarta Post