New Brunswick Potato farmer arrested in Lebanon

A New Brunswick potato farmer has been detained in Lebanon. Grand Falls-area farmer Henk Tepper of Tobique Farms has been arrested upon entry to the country that sits on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

He was accompanying a potato shipment to Lebanon, but was stopped when arriving in the capital city of Beirut on March 23.

He has been held by Lebanese officials since then.

"He has not been arrested, he has been detained,"said Harmeine Dionne, Tepper's sister and a Grand Falls schoolteacher. "We don't know what the complications are.

"All that we know is that when he arrived in Lebanon, and this was a business trip through Potatoes Canada, that when they swiped his passport a red flag came up and they detained him."

Tobique Farms started out as a small 70-acre family farm roughly 30 years ago, but has grown into a larger international enterprise selling seed, table and other potatoes around the globe.

The farm, run by Henk Tepper and his father Berend Tepper, now encompasses roughly 3,000 acres in Drummond and Tilley.

It originally sold all of its supply to McCain Foods Canada, before deciding to go abroad in 1989 with its first international sales to the Cuban and eastern market.

"We do know that he is in Lebanon and that his return is being worked on by high levels of government departments to try to get him home,"said Joe Brennan, chairman of Potatoes New Brunswick. "We do hope that he returns safely."