By Juan MontoyaBy the time you read this, the man at right, former marine Jon Hammar, detained since August in the notorious Cartel-ridden CEDES prison, should be a free man reunited with his family in Brownsville.
The 27-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan wars veteran was taken into Mexican custody when he declared he had his great grandfather's shotgun with him when he and a friend crossed the border into Tamaulipas en route to Costa Rica where they intended to go surfing.
Both had suffered and sought treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder before they took off together for Costa Rica to forget about the horrors of war, according to statements Hammar's parents told the media.
The horror, however, was about to begin after Hammer declared the weapon to Mexican authorities in Matamoros and he was arrested on the spot and transferred to the CEDES prison outside of Matamoros to await trial for the offense which could have seen him sentenced to 15 yeasr in prison.
The vice president of the Tamaulipas Chamber of Commerce has confirmed that U.S Marine Jon Hammar is in the custody of U.S. officials.
"He's free," Gerardo Danache Acevedo, vice president of the Tamaulipas Chamber of Commerce, told The Brownsville Herald this afternoon.
Danache told the daily that he spoke personally to Mexico President Enrique Peña-Nieto over the telephone last week and told him that his organization's members had filed a petition with 14,000 signatures asking him to release the marine.
“I really, really believe the media played a big role in this. I am happy that this will happen because there is no reason we should continue with this” Acevedo Danache said in a telephone interview with the Herald.
While at the CEDES, Cartel members tried to extort $1,800 from Hammar's family in Florida by calling them on the telephone and threatening to killl him if they didn't send the money. Prison officials then separated him from the general prison population and kept him chained to his bunk in a single cell.
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