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“When I arrived at the Beirut airport and when they swiped my passport they told me that there was a problem and I had to come with them,” Mr. Tepper wrote in a diary entry, provided to the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal. “We went in a small room and soldiers and policemen with guns surrounding me. They asked me if I had ever been to Algeria and if I had done something wrong in Algeria. I replied, ‘Never.’ Then they told me that we were going somewhere else and they handcuffed me.

“Then they threw me in a truck with a cover. I was laying on the floor in the back of this truck and the truck was driving so fast my body was moving from one side of the truck to the other side,” he wrote.

“The embassy lied to the Canadian government regarding the jail conditions — they said there were windows, sunlight and fresh air. I have not seen the sun since I have been detained. At night there are many flies, we see cockroaches in the cell, toilet and shower. And then there are these huge spiders, they are grey and the biggest I saw was just as large as my hand.”

In the end, he was released without charge after a year, an outcome that Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy credited to quiet and persistent diplomatic work.

“On behalf of the Government of Canada, I am pleased that Canadian consular officials have helped secure the release of Mr. Henk Tepper,” she said in a statement.

Arriving at the Ottawa airport on Saturday, all Mr. Tepper said to reporters is that he is happy to be home. His family and lawyers expressed gratitude to Lebanon and the Canadian public, but had noticeably nothing to say about the Canadian government.