More Canadian crookedness

The story of an American who reports he was imprisoned in Canada in violation of an international treaty on trumped-up charges and tortured after he uncovered an alleged police-run drug ring is going viral on the Internet. Scott Loper, whose personal battles for justice already are being highlighted on a new website, the ScottLoperStory.com, now is the subject of an action alert by RestoreTheRepublic.com.

"When one bleeds we all bleed, and until Bush gives the same attention to Loper as he gave Jose Medellin, America will continue to bleed," said Gary Franchi, national director of Restore the Republic. He said as an act of "solidarity" with Loper, his organization is releasing an action alert suggesting the 37,000 members of Restore the Republic contact Congress to demand hearings to review what took place while Loper was in custody in Canada.

"The halls of power are not in Washington, D.C., they are in the halls of your home," Franchi said. "It is you who must take action, when our elected officials do not. No American is safe abroad unless the Vienna Convention is enforced internationally.

"When an American police officer is entombed in a steel coffin for months on end and only receives release when he is placed in a steel cage to be sprayed with steam until his skin blisters, and those we trust to give us justice choose to sweep it under the carpet, there is a big problem that needs to be addressed," he said.

Franchi also is instructing his organization's membership to call and e-mail members of the U.S. State Department "involved in the stonewalling of justice until hearings being and Loper's missing son is located." "We demand this matter be brought to light for all Americans to see," he said. "The State Department needs to take a deeper look at the case instead of accepting documents that are invalid."

He said the Restore The Republic website contains information about contacting members of Congress and the State Department. Among those listed are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Chief of Western Hemisphere Division Ken Durkin in the U.S. State Department and others.

The Loper website reveals, "On the verge of exposing a police-run narcotics ring in Durham, Ontario, Loper was discovered by the ring and imprisoned for four years on trumped-up charges. There, he was tortured to the point where he often questioned his ability to make it out alive." "Those he had been about to expose were after the evidence – audio and video recordings Loper had made of their illegal operations. They also wanted him to keep quiet.

"The Canadian government originally said the whole thing, including Loper's arrest, never happened, denying that Loper had ever lived in Canada, let alone been incarcerated there," it says. Eventually, the truth of his imprisonment was revealed, and the U.S. State Department and Loper's member of Congress were asked to become involved because he reported that Canada violated the Vienna Convention. That document, signed by 164 nations in 1967, requires nations to notify foreign nationals when arrested of their right to contact their own embassy, and allow that contact. Loper reports that never happened. The Canadian government reports Loper "waived" those rights, but has been unable to produce documentation.

"The Canadians finally came up with an unsigned document that holds absolutely no credibility. To add to the absurdity, the document is dated three years after Loper was arrested," the website reports.

Loper, and his civil rights lawyer, C. Scott Shields, have told WND they are awaiting the results of their Freedom of Information Act requests for documentation in the case before deciding on any further action.

Canadian officials repeatedly have declined to respond to WND questions about the case. To the U.S. State Department, they provided a copy of a document they explained was a "waiver" of his rights to have consular officials from his own nation notified. But the document is dated 2003, even though Loper's case developed in 2000, is unsigned, and regards an admissibility hearing, according to Shields.

He said in Loper's case, the nation of Canada determined his eligibility for deportation at the beginning of his sentence in 2000, and he eventually was deported, so a document dated 2003 and pertaining to such an admissibility hearing would be irrelevant. The "waiver" came through the U.S. State Department and Hoyer, D-Md., to Shields on behalf of Loper.

Loper has reported he was jailed in Canada from 2000-2004, and alleges the charges were trumped-up and he subsequently was tortured during his confinement. Besides his pursuit of a complaint against Canada, he's been searching for his wife and son, Edward, now 11, who disappeared at the time of his jailing.

Loper, who had moved to Canada so his wife at the time could be closer to her family, later divorced and remarried. While moving into a townhome with his second wife, Carolyn, they were welcomed by a beer-drinking crowd in the next unit who identified themselves as police officers, one of whom later warned him that a neighbor on the other side was "under surveillance" as a possible drug dealer.

Loper's experience as a New Jersey officer alerted him, and he subsequently watched officers repeatedly sneak into the next-door unit. He bought some microphones and a tape recorder and installed the mikes so they would monitor what was going on, discovering that police officers in the Durham region allegedly were busting drug dealers being identified by his neighbor, then bringing the drugs to him for sale, he said. Before he could take his evidence to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's federal police unit, he was busted by local police, taken to a mental health facility and detained, he said.

While he was confined, his townhome was ransacked, his tapes confiscated and his wife and young son disappeared. He recalls a last telephone call from Carolyn. "I love you but they'll take Eddie away!" were the last words he heard her say, Loper told WND.

Released from the mental facility after a few days, he found his wife and son gone, and when he tried to find them, found himself the subject of a restraining order. He tried to express his love for his wife and son in a letter to a friend. But authorities determined that was an attempt at an "indirect communication" and in violation of a court order, so he was sentenced to prison for four years.

In prison, he said, officers repeatedly tried to get him to admit that he was making up the claims about the police officers' drug connections. "There was a hot water radiator. They would spray me with that to get me to recant my story, to get me to stop saying it," he said. Back in the United States, he's remarried and pursuing another line of work. But he still is demanding justice for what he experienced.

Original report here




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