3 Americans Held in Land Dispute Freed
Three Americans jailed over a land dispute in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state have been released and the charges thrown out, their attorney said. Mary Ellen Sanger, John Barbato and Joseph Simpson were charged with illegally occupying and looting a large house in the town of San Pablo Etla whose ownership by U.S. writer Russell Ames is contested by the local University of the Americas.
Sanger, Barbato and Simpson had lived in the house to care for Ames.
“They had nothing to do with the land dispute,” attorney Tomas Fernandez said.
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