Article content continued

“The rule of thumb is that anything a Canadian will do in Canada, they will do in a foreign country,” said Gar Pardy, a retired Canadian ambassador. “If you look at any given time, there are about 1,800 to 2,000 Canadians in a foreign jail. The majority of them relate to drugs, and then it spirals out from that; assault, murder, rape. And you get robbery, fraud, all of those things crop up in these cases.”

Canada’s consular officers have limited powers to act on behalf of citizens in foreign countries; it’s local law that applies to Canadians who travel abroad.

No country boasts pleasant jails, Mr. Pardy added. However, detention in other countries can be particularly gruelling. In addition to language barriers, foreign justice systems don’t always adhere to Canadian notions of fairness; they can be heavily influenced by local political realities.

Although the arrest of Mr. Loubani and Mr. Greyson sparked widespread outrage, Mr. Pardy, who has handled similar cases numerous times during his career, said he was actually quite impressed by Egyptian authorities, considering the circumstances.

“The Egyptian authorities were being fairly co-operative with the two. People in the Cairo embassy were in contact with them on a regular basis, they could bring in medical help,” he said. “The two got pretty good local legal assistance … they seem to be trying to work the system as well as they can. The basic dynamic at work here is that the Egyptian system is a system that is under extreme stress, and it’s subject to the political system.”