Andrew Tahmooressi

Fox News ?<s>@</s>FoxNews<small class="time">1m1 minute ago</small>

BREAKING: Mexican judge orders immediate release of jailed US Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, family spokesman says

Wonderful news, Mom.

He's a free man. Thank God.

I sure hope so. Poor guy. He will need lots of TLC when he gets back on American soil.

Is he the guy with PTSD and guns? Arrested in Mexico for possessing a firearm?

Glad he'll be released. Hope they keep his guns.

Wayyyyyyyyyyyyy past time.

Finally!! Excellent news!!!

Glad to hear it!

From the San Diego Union Tribune 1 minute ago:

TIJUANA — A Mexican federal district judge in Tijuana on Friday ordered the immediate release of a U.S. Marine veteran behind bars in Baja California on federal weapons charges.

Andrew Tahmooressi was on trial for crossing the border with ammunition and three loaded weapon on March 31. The Mexican Attorney General’s Office agreed to cease its prosecution of Tahmooressi and allow him to return to the United States.

The agreement brings to a close a high-profile case that has resounded far beyond the border. In the United States, it has prompted calls for his release from politicians, veterans groups, conservative talk show hosts. But for months there had been an impasse, as Mexican federal prosecutors insisted that the case be resolved through the courts -- not through diplomatic or political pressure.

Tahmooressi, 26, claims that he drove into Tijuana by mistake on a Monday night after taking a wrong turn near the Mexican border in San Ysidro. He recently had moved from Florida to San Diego, and says that he was driving out of a parking lot, intending to head north. But instead he drove into the El Chaparral Port of Entry, where Mexican customs inspectors examined his pickup truck and found more 400 rounds of ammunition and three loaded firearms: a 45-caliber pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a 5.56mm assault rifle.

His release from El Hongo State Penitentiary outside Tecate was ordered by Judge Victor Octavio Luna Escobedo of the Sixth Federal District Court in Tijuana. Had Tahmooressi been convicted, he would have faced from seven to 21 years behind bars.

Even though the U.S. State Department reports that dozens of U.S. citizens are arrested each month for violating Mexico’s gun laws, few if any cases have gotten such wide attention.

Tahmooressi’s situation initially elicited little public sympathy in Mexico, where there is no constitutional right to bear arms. A headline last May in the Tijuana newsweekly, Zeta read: "He did not enter Mexico in error." But his detention did strike a nerve with some sectors in the United States intent on seeing him released.

The weapons and ammunition confiscated from Andrew's Tahmooressi's vehicle.

Portraying Tahmooressi as a U.S. war hero unjustly detained in a foreign country, they invoked his military service — two tours of duty in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marines, with an honorable discharge in 2012, and stressed that Tahmooressi needed to return to the United States for treatment. Shortly before his arrest he had been diagnosed with PTSD and started treatment at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in La Jolla.

“I firmly believe that Sgt. Tahmooressi meant no harm, nor willfully violated Mexican law when he crossed the border,” said Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., chair of a House subcommittee that held a hearing last month to call attention to the case.

Benítez, his Tijuana defense attorney, used a range of tactics to win his release. He initially pressed for dismissal of the case on the grounds that his client’s rights were allegedly violated when he was held at the El Chaparral Port of Entry for hours without the presence of an attorney or a translator.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/oct/31/andrew-tahmooressi-marine-veteran-released-mexico/