@RosLehtinen: Marine Veteran Jon Hammar to be Released from Mexico Prison McClatchy Newspapers
go to original December 21, 2012

UPDATE: A Mexican judge has agreed to free Jon Hammar, several congressional members said Friday. With the judge’s ruling, Hammar was expected to be released after noon Friday, according to U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

WASHINGTON — Jon Hammar, the Marine veteran from Florida arrested at the Mexico border for carrying his great-grandfather's firearm, will be released today, according to U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

"BREAKING: #JonHammar's mom confirmed that he will b released 2day! More info 2 follow," Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, tweeted this morning.

Hammar was arrested Aug. 13 when he and a fellow Marine veteran tried to cross into Mexico from Texas. Hammar had been told by U.S. Customs and Border Control that he need only declare the six-decade-old shotgun at the border.

The .410 bore Sears & Roebuck shotgun once belonged to his great-grandfather. The firearm had been handed down through the generations, and it had become almost a part of Hammar, suitable for shooting birds and rabbits.

But Mexican prosecutors who looked at the disassembled relic in the 1972 Winnebago motor home dismissed the U.S. registration papers Hammar had filled out. They charged him with a serious crime: possession of a weapon restricted for use to Mexico’s armed forces.

Hammar was sent to a Matamoros prison, where he spent much of his time chained to a bed and facing death threats from gangsters.

McClatchy first reported on Hammar's plight Dec. 6. Lawmakers responded quickly. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, exhorted Mexico to release Hammar.

Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also lashed out at what she said was a failure by the Obama administration to offer details of what it was doing to free Hammar.

“The State Department must do more in this case and work incessantly until Jon is reunited with his family in South Florida,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement last week.

Hammar, 27, joined the Marines and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq before receiving an honorable discharge in 2007, serving another four years in inactive reserve.

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