Obama Silent as Mexico Jails USMC Marine on Trumped-Up Gun Charge
by Tony Lee 9 Dec 2012, 8:38 AM PDT
A former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has been chained to a bed in a Mexican prison since August. Jon Hammar faces up to 12 years in a Mexican jail on what may be a trumped-up charge of possessing an illegal shotgun. Customs officials had already cleared before the shotgun before he entered Mexico.
On August 23, Hammar and his friend Ian McDonough were en route to Costa Rica on a surfing vacation when they ran into trouble after crossing the Mexican border.
According to McClatchy newspapers, Hammer brought “a six-decade-old shotgun into Mexico,” which his mother referred to as a “glorified BB gun,” that was passed down to him by his grandfather.
McDonough said the Customs and Border Protection Agent said, “All you have to do is register” the gun, and gave them a registration paper to give to the Mexican authorities.
When Hammar gave the registration form to the Mexican agents, he and McDonough were immediately taken into custody and Mexican prosecutors looked at the “disassembled relic in the 1972 Winnebago motor home” and “dismissed the U.S. registration papers Hammar had filled out,” charging Hammar with the serious crime of “possession of a weapon restricted for use to Mexico’s armed forces”:
Curiously, it wasn’t the type of shotgun that broke Mexican law. It was the length of the barrel, which the formal citation said was shorter than 25 inches, although a discrepancy has emerged over how the barrel was measured.
It is worth nothing Mexico’s gangs “routinely wield AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, high-powered .50-caliber sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other potent weaponry,” and Hammar’s shotgun is rendered useless against such high-powered weapons.
The Mexican lawyer representing Hammar said he faces three to 12 years in a Mexican federal prison if convicted on the gun charge. Mexican authorities released McDonough, Hammar’s friends, who was able to walk back to Texas, most likely because he had been living part-time in Argentina.
Marine Sgt. James Garcia served with Hammar in various combat situations and said he was heartbroken because Hammar was “one of the best we had.” According to McClatchy, Hammer, now 27 years of age, “joined the Marines and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq before receiving an honorable discharge in 2007, serving another four years in inactive reserve.”
After Hammar was sent to a state prison in Matamoros, his parents in Florida received phone calls demanding $1,800.
According to McClatchy, Hammar’s family did not pay the extortion and contacted U.S. diplomats and got Hammar into solitary confinement and out of the wing controlled by a Mexican drug cartel….(Con’t)
THE WAKING GIANT 
Reblogged this on Sally's Political Blog.
DO YOU THINK RUSSIA OR EVEN ISRAEL WOULD EVER TOLERATE THE OUTRIGHT CRIMINAL VIOLATION OF A FAILED STATE (mexico) TO VIOLATE THEIR NATIONAL SOVERIGNTY OR TAKE ONE OF THEIR NATIONALS UNDER FRAUDULENT PRETENSES. RUSSIA AND ISRAEL WOULD MAKE AND EXAMPLE OUT OF mexico for even thinking this. FREE JON HAMMAR NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “SEMPER FI” BROTHER WE ARE COMMING FOR YOU