An Afghan national living in Germany has been charged with the 2014 murder of a U.S. soldier from Trenton; Commerce police announce “safe zone” for public transactions.
Trenton
A 20-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker living in Germany appears to have been charged with the murder of a Northeast Texas soldier in Afghanistan, according to a report in Stars and Stripes. The charges are related to an ambush in the Baraki Barak region of Afghanistan in April 2014, the report said.
The German prosecutor’s office didn’t identify the soldiers, but the only U.S. service member killed about that time in Baraki Barak was Pfc. Christian J. Chandler, 20, of Trenton.
Chandler joined the Army in October 2012. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light), based in Fort Drum, N.Y.
The man, identified only as Abdol Moghada S., was also charged with the attempted murder of two more U.S. soldiers who were wounded in the same ambush in early 2014, German officials said on July 28.
The statement alleged that the Afghan national joined the Taliban in 2013 and participated in attacks against U.S. convoys in 2013 and 2014. A U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded during the 2014 ambush, the German prosecutor’s office said. He left Afghanistan in 2015 and arrived in Germany by way of Iran and Turkey, the report said.
Commerce
The Commerce Police Department has announced a Safe Exchange Zone for the purposes of child custody, private property and e-commerce transactions. At the police headquarters at 1103 Sycamore St., there are two spaces designated in the north parking lot that are monitored by 24 hour surveillance cameras. Additional cameras have been installed for these areas to assure the safety of people conducting business.
Mosquito trucks will continue to spray parts of Commerce this evening, and again on Wed., Aug. 2. Last week, a mosquito gathered from Pecan Street, located near the Commerce City Park, tested positive for the West Nile Virus. No human cases of West Nile Virus have been reported in Northeast Texas.
