NAPA, California — Mexico’s Consul General in San Francisco, Andrés Roemer, told Breitbart News this week that jailed United States Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been held for over 150 days in a Mexican prison on gun charges, could be released “sooner or later.”
In an interview with Breitbart News on Tuesday, outside of Napa’s Crosswalk Community Church, Roemer said he believed it was only a matter of time before Sgt. Tahmooressi’s release. “That’s what I think. I’m not the judge… But I think so,” he said.
Tahmooressi, who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, was stopped by Mexican authorities after he crossed over the Mexican border with guns, which are banned in Mexico.
He immediately told police that he had been attempting to make a U-turn and said he had crossed the border by accident, and revealed to them that he had three guns in the back of his truck. However, he was denied a request to turn around and was instead arrested.
“We have to respect the judicial system in Mexico [just] as in the States. We have to respect what the judge will actually do,” Roemer told Breitbart News.
The consul general had been visiting several Mexican nationals at a Napa church-turned-shelter in order to provide them with outreach and support on behalf of the Mexican Government for damages they had suffered resulting from Sunday’s ruinous 6.0 magnitude earthquake.
Roemer had just returned from Sacramento where he had participated in a luncheon being hosted by Governor Jerry Brown for Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto at the historic Leland Stanford Mansion Museum.
Approximately 300 people attended a protest outside of the luncheon calling for the release of the incarcerated Tahmooressi, which was organized by California State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks).
Donnelly said that “the very first thing he [President Nieto] ought to do if he wants something from us, is he needs to free our Marine…it’s the very least that he could do considering that we afford courtesy to allies.”
On the circumstances surrounding Tahmooressi’s arrest, Donnelly told Breitbart News, “You know, when the Mexican military crosses the border with fully automatic assault weapons, we don’t arrest them, even though they’re in violation of California law. We give them GPS’s and send them back where they came from.”
Donnelly and State Senator Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) had both declined to attend the luncheon. Taking a slightly different approach, Assemblymember Melissa Melendez (R-Murrieta) “chose to skip the protests outside the Capitol” and attend the luncheon, where she hand-delivered a letter signed by 20 state legislators demanding Tahmooressi’s release.
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz.
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