52 Days in Honduran jail for Americans on bogus gun charges
Friday I did an interview with Capt. Robert Mayne, Jr of the research vessel Aqua Quest. Mayne and his group have traveled the world doing marine salvage and maritime archeology for decades. Well on a recent adventure in Honduras, where he and his five man crew were going to help clear rivers and help local Miskito Indian divers out. You see those local divers down there, uneducated in proper dive tables and decompression, frequently get the bends from working on the ocean floor, surfacing on their last breath of air to get passed another tank, then going back down.
The Aqua Quest Six after returning to the U.S. in July after spending 52 days in a Honduran jail on bogus gun charges. From left to right: Michael McCabe, Devon Butler, Robert H. Mayne Jr, Nick Cook, Steven Matanich, and Kelly Garrett. (Photo: Aquaquest International)
The thing is, Mayne, his crew and the Aqua Quest soon found themselves on the bad end of a shakedown from a local prosecutor with the help of the police, navy, and a local judge over some legally stored firearms on board the ship. I say shakedown because they were told that, for the right amount of cash, their problems could simply go away.
Refusing to pay, they were thrown away in a local jail and forgotten.
Read the rest in my column, and the interview with Mayne over at Guns.com