Features Business Policy
Deal not in works to release N.B. farmer

December
16, 2011, Ottawa, Ont – The Canadian government is dismissing reports that it
is close to securing the release of a New Brunswick farmer from a Lebanese
prison.

December
16, 2011, Ottawa, Ont – The Canadian government is dismissing reports that it
is close to securing the release of a New Brunswick farmer from a Lebanese
prison.

Canada’s minister of state for foreign affairs says the
Lebanese government has international legal obligations to meet before it will
consider releasing Henk Tepper.

Diane
Ablonczy told the House of Commons yesterday that it will take more than a
letter from Canada to gain Tepper’s release.

Tepper
has been held in a Beirut prison since March 23.

He faces
allegations that he forged documents to allow the export of rotten Canadian
potatoes to Algeria in 2007.

Tepper’s
lawyers have denied the allegations, saying the potatoes were inspected in
Canada.