Imprisoned and Tortured in a Canadian jail and alienated from his wife and son, whom he hasn't seen since, Scott Loper was denied access to the outside world, including any means of legal protection.
Video - NEW! Scott Loper Tells His Story.
"... let us work for the day when the practice of torture is a shameful fact of history-and nothing more."
These are the words of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) as he used the United Nations' International Day in Support of Victims of Torture as an opportunity to criticize the Bush administration while holding himself up as a great supporter of victims of torture. "As long as there is torture anywhere in the world, you will have our support", Hoyer proclaimed to the Maryland-based Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma just last June.
It appears that Congressman Hoyer is more concerned about international victims than torture victims among his own constituents.
New Jersey cop Scott Loper was jailed in Canada on extorted charges, beaten and tortured for two years in an Ontario jail, and denied any access to a U.S. consulate. Threatened to keep his mouth shut, Loper was then transferred to another Canadian prison, where he spent another two years, and again denied his right to contact the U.S. Embassy.
Loper's crime? He was about to expose a gang of cooked cops. When, almost four years after his incarceration, things had gotten to the point where the Durham Ontario Regional Police began to do their own investigation of these thugs, Loper was taken out of prison and dumped at the U.S. border - the fate of his Canadian wife, his three-year-old son and all of his worldly possessions left to mystery.
After denying that Loper had ever even lived in Canada - let alone been incarcerated there, the Canadian government had to back-track when he was able to provide proof from some of the few scraps of documentation he had managed to keep in his possession.
The Canadians then tried to pass off a phoney document as a waiver of Scott Lopers Vienna Convention rights. The document is dated three years after his incarceration and does not bear his signature, but the state department says that's just fine, and the good Congressman Steny Hoyer is happy to go along with the ruse. His official response? "The Congressman has done all that he can do."
We would like to inform the Congressman of what he can do that he has not done, since he seems to be a little confused as to who he is supposed to represent.
We elect our representatives to represent us - not special interests; not foreign governments; not the State Department. It is the explicit duty of those we put in the position of Representative to represent the interests of U.S. citizens. Congressman Hoyer has failed miserably.
Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, signed by 164 nations in 1967, states that those nations are bound to notify foreign nationals, when arrested, of their right to contact their embassy or consulate, allowing that embassy or consulate to assure that citizen is treated properly.
The Canadian government says Scott Loper waived those rights. However, they could produce no signed document as proof of this statement. The reason, says Loper, is that no such signed document ever existed.
Here is the unsigned document, finally delivered to the State Department by the Canadian government, that holds absolutely no credibility. Notice that Scott Loper's signature appears nowhere on this document and, as mentioned above, is dated three years after his arrest in 2000. Even if this was not an excruciatingly absurd representation of an excuse, three years is hardly the requirement of notice "without delay" as described by Article 36. However, Congressman Hoyer and the State Department seem to think it is good enough for them.
The ongoing series of articles on the right are written by World Net Daily staff writer Bob Unruh. They contain an amazing story of U.S. officials and Congressional representatives failing to accomplish justice in an important matter of international relations and protection for U.S. citizens.
The Canadian government does not want this story to be told. The U.S. government seems happy to oblige.
There is a larger issue here that affects the safety and well-being of every U.S. citizen who ventures into another country. If the U.S. Government is unwilling to expect its neighbor to the north to comply with the Vienna Convention, what protection can we expect from our government when our rights are violated by other, less friendly countries.
The only resolution here is to force our government to do what it is supposed to do; to protect its citizens. In the case of Scott Loper, the U.S. needs to demand of the Canadian government the admission of illegal imprisonment and torture as well as compensation and help in locating his lost family.
E-Mail, Mail or Fax Washington D.C. Now!
Hear an interview with Scott Loper and his attorney, Scott Shields during a tele-conference conducted by Gary Franchi of RestoreTheRepublic.com.
The question of the government's response to the Scott Loper Story was brought up at a White House press conference with Press Secretary Dana Perino.
Perino was obviously unaware of the Loper situation, yet seems to be a bit uneasy in discussing the case of Mexican national Jose Medellin, a child murderer who's death penalty has been a point of contention between George Bush and the Texas judicial system, due to the failure on the part of the State of Texas to satisfy Medellin's Vienna Convention rights.
In the Medellin case, the government of Mexico initiated proceedings against the United States in the International Court of Justice. This was followed by the filing of an amicus curiae brief by the European Union and Members of the International Community.
A U.S. government brief, filed by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement directed toward the Texas Court, states that ignoring the World Court's decision that the conviction should be overturned would “frustrate the President’s judgment that foreign policy interests are best served by giving effect to that decision.”
President Bush went to bat to uphold the rights of a confessed child murderer, yet Washington seems unwilling to hold the Canadian government to the same standards in defense of a U.S. citizen who did nothing wrong.
Had Scott Loper not survived the torture he was subjected to at Whitby Jail, there would have been no one to overturn his death penalty.
Video - White House Press Conference
There were more elements to the torture Scott Loper experienced while in the Whitby Jail. Scott would prefer to avoid reminders of some of these elements. Others we have omitted in the interest of prudence.
