New Brunswick potato farmer Henk Tepper checks on his field Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at his farm in Drummond, N.B. Tepper is back home after more than a year in a Lebanese jail.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot
June 27, 2012 - 2:11 PM
DRUMMOND, N.B. - A New Brunswick farmer who spent 373 days in a Lebanese jail on accusations he exported rotten potatoes to Algeria says the Canadian government did nothing to help get him home.
In an interview with The Canadian Press today, Henk Tepper of Drummond says the Canadian ambassador in Beirut told him he would be sent to Algeria to face charges there.
Diane Ablonczy, the federal minister of state for foreign affairs, has said the federal government used "quiet diplomacy" to help secure Tepper's release in March.
Tepper says consular officials also told him they were in daily contact with his family, but that wasn't always the case.
No one from Ablonczy's office was immediately available for comment on Tepper's comments, who agreed to be interviewed today for the first time since his release.
Tepper was arrested in Lebanon on March 23, 2011, when he travelled to the Middle East on an agricultural trade mission.
He was detained on an international arrest warrant on allegations he exported rotten potatoes to Algeria in 2007 and forged export documents.
Tepper says he was totally unaware there was a warrant and he thinks he should have been warned by Canadian officials before he travelled outside the country.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2012