New Brunswick Farmer Files Lawsuit

A New Brunswick farmer has filed a lawsuit against the Canadian Government, stating it didn't protect his Charter rights.

Henk Tepper spent more than a year in a Beirut jail on allegations he shipped rotten potatoes to Algeria. According to the CBC, Tepper’s $16.5 million lawsuit claims that the government didn't do enough to try to secure his release and that the RCMP provided misinformation to Algerian authorities prior to his arrest.

Tepper was arrested in Lebanon on March 23, 2011, after he has traveled to an agricultural trade mission there to promote Canadian seed potatoes. He was held on an international arrest warrant on allegations he exported rotten potatoes to Algeria in 2007 and forged export documents — allegations he denies.

After his lawyers got a Lebanese presidential decree, Tepper returned to Canada on March 31, 2012. The matter will now be handled in federal court in Ottawa.