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.
(Aug 28, 2008 - Rev. Oct 14, 2008) Former New Jersey police officer Scott Loper was imprisoned, on extorted charges, and tortured in a Canadian Jail.
U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and the State Department are aiding the Canadian government in covering up the affair by accepting as valid a document fraudulently portrayed by the Canadians as a waiver of Loper's Vienna Convention rights. Other Democratic leaders, well aware of the situation, stand silent.
Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) is concerned. In a letter to the State Department, Wolf, Co-Chair of The Congressional Human Rights Caucus and a ranking member of the State Foreign Operations Subcommittee, has called for an investigation.
"... 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 just last June, to the Maryland-based "Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma".
It appears that Congressman Hoyer is more concerned about international victims than torture victims among his own constituents.
One of those constituents was Scott Loper, a good cop, highly trained in surveillance and criminal investigation. Loper moved out of Hoyer's district this year, and his case has come to the attention of Frank Wolf, now Loper's congressional representative.
While living with his Canadian wife in the Durham Region of Ontario, Canada, Loper discovered a police-run narcotics ring. A dedicated law enforcement officer, Loper set up a trap to provide evidence to Canadian authorities, but his surveillance devices were discovered by the ring.
After a failed attempt at having him declared mentally unstable, this gang of criminal police officers managed to extort charges leading to his imprisonment in nearby Whitby jail, a small facility primarily used for housing the accused awaiting trial. Loper spent two years in this jail, which was close to the Durham Police headquarters. There he was tortured to the point where he often questioned his ability to make it out alive.
The police officers Loper was about to expose were after the evidence - audio and video recordings he had made of their illegal activities. Knowing they could not hold him forever, they also wanted to assure that Loper kept his mouth shut.
Torture and prolonged solitary confinement are a very effective combination in breaking a victim's will.
After two years at the Whitby Jail, Loper, under threats to keep quiet, "or else", was then sentenced to another two years at another facility as a secondary result of the same extorted charges.
At no time during his incarceration was Scott Loper allowed to contact the U.S. Embassy or consular services.
Meanwhile, as Loper's four-year incarceration was coming to a close in 2004, things in Durham Region had gotten even more out of control, forcing the Durham Regional Police to launch their own investigation into the activities of these thugs. Once the investigation began to take place, Loper's sentence was cut short, and he 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.
Loper sought help from the U.S. Government.
Confronted by an inquiry from the State Department, the Canadian government denied Loper had ever even lived in Canada - let alone been incarcerated there. The Canadians had to back-track when Loper was able to provide proof of his imprisonment from some of the few scraps of documentation he had managed to keep in his possession.
Canadian officials then tried to pass off a phony document as a waiver of Scott Loper's Vienna Convention rights. The document, dated three years after his incarceration, does not bear Loper's required signature, but the state department has ignored this important qualification, accepting the document as valid. 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 elected to represent.
We elect our representatives to represent us - not special interests; not foreign governments; not the State Department or the current administration. It is the explicit duty of those we elect to Congress to represent the interests of U.S. citizens. In this, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and The Democratic Leadership have 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, and to provide the means of communication, allowing that embassy or consulate the ability to assure that their 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, the document is dated three years after his arrest in 2000. This is an extremely absurd representation of an excuse. Even if it were not, 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!
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 dubious rights of a confessed child murderer, who did not even claim he was a Mexican citizen until he received the death penalty - some 10 years after being arrested for the crime - yet Washington seems unwilling to hold the Canadian government to the same standards in defense of a U.S. citizen who was DENIED those rights. Medellin wasn't DENIED anything - he never claimed to be a foreign national until 10 years after his arrest, and then only AFTER his conviction.
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.
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.
