Tepper supporters want Ottawa to up efforts to free him
CBC News
Posted: Jul 27, 2011 5:55 AM ET
Last Updated: Jul 27, 2011 5:55 AM ET
A crowd of roughly 125 people gathered in Drummond, N.B., Tuesday night to be updated on local potato farmer Henk Tepper's fight to be freed from a Lebanese jail.
Tepper has been stuck in a Beirut jail for more than four months over allegations that he sold rotten potatoes to Algeria.
Jim Mockler, Tepper's lawyer, denies the allegations and told the crowd his client is being treated like a criminal and the federal government is doing nothing to help.
Mockler said Tepper hasn't been charged with anything.
Mockler visited Tepper recently in Beirut, and spoke to him on July 12 through the bars of his prison cell.
Liberal Sen. Pierrette Ringuette said she's had meetings with officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs as well as ambassadors from the governments of Lebanon and Algeria.
Ringuette said in an interview the federal government could quickly ensure Tepper's release if only they intervened directly.
"We are all working so hard to make [Tepper's release] happen. It would only take a five-minute call from the prime minister of Canada or from [Foreign Affairs] Minister [John] Baird to Lebanon requesting that they send our Canadian citizen, Tepper, back home for it to happen," Ringuette said.
"From my perspective, it is unreasonable for our federal government not to have done so quite a while ago. I believe if that same situation would have happened to a Toronto lawyer, he would have been out of the Lebanese prison and back in Canada."
Tepper, 44, was detained March 23 and is in a jail in Beirut awaiting extradition to Algeria.
Tepper was detained on an international criminal warrant at the request of the Algerian government, and is accused of selling potatoes in Algeria that were unfit for human consumption.
Tepper operates Tobique Farms, which at 1,214 hectares is one of New Brunswick's largest producers.
Tepper's family received an extension to the creditor protection covering the business.
The family is indebted to many creditors and has been asking for more time to deal with those creditors.
A Court of Queen's Bench judge granted Tobique Farms creditor protection until September.
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