In fact, of course, what we have done in not accepting to lift the diplomatic immunity and instead bringing him back home to face justice in Russia is, as many of you know, a diplomatic practice which many countries apply in similar situations. I have been talking to my colleagues and searching my own memory, having been 26 or more years in the diplomatic service. Neither of us can recall a situation where a foreign diplomat would be facing Russian justice in Russia and, of course, we didn't do anything as we were bringing him back to Russia which the Canadian authorities were not aware of. So at no point in time throughout this ordeal have we been doing anything which would not be appropriate for us as diplomats, for the Russian government as a government of a country, and which would not respect the rights of the Canadian government, of Canadian citizens and the required practices. Well, some of you having served in Russia know that Moscow is a very busy big city.
Traffic accidents happen all the time.
Some of them involve drunken drivers, some of them happen to be foreign diplomats. While not of them are drunken, but some of them have caused considerable injury to Russian pedestrians. As some of you may know, at this point there is a well-publicized case in Russia where a man was badly injured by a western diplomat two years ago and has been looking for justice since. So we know how it feels for somebody from a foreign country to do a thing similar to what happened here and, additionally, according to the press reports and police reports, behaving in a manner which would not be appropriate even coming from someone who has done it in a way which we don't expect a person to behave. And as I say, I do not recall a case where a foreign diplomat would have been tried for something he had committed in Russia.