#3
Toronto Star
March 17, 2002
Envoy's case puts Moscow court on trial
Paul Webster
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
MOSCOW
THE TRIAL last week of former diplomat Andrei Knyazev turned out to be another stain on Russia's reputation at a time when the former superpower is looking for more respect on the international scene.
Knyazev, 46, is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Ottawa car crash that killed Ottawa lawyer Catherine MacLean and severely injured Catherine Doré on Jan. 27, 2001. The Russian court's verdict is expected Tuesday.
The fact that Knyazev was a senior diplomat recommended for one of his country's top foreign-service jobs shortly before the day of the accident makes Russia's embarrassing situation all the more striking.
First, there was the fatal accident itself, swiftly followed by the news that Knyazev seemed drunk to police at the accident scene but claimed diplomatic immunity and refused to take a breathalyzer test.
He flew home two days later, under the protection of the Russian government.
Next came the revelation that another Russian embassy employee, driver Yevgeny Blochin, crashed his car and was arrested for drunk driving the same afternoon that Knyazev ran down the two pedestrians. Both men were driving home from an embassy ice-fishing party.
The Russian government hustled Blochin back to Moscow with Knyazev and laid no charges against him.
Then came the news that Ottawa police had a bulging file on Knyazev before the accident. He had twice avoided breathalyzers by invoking diplomatic immunity and on one occasion had repeatedly rammed another car with his vehicle.
Recognizing that Knyazev had damaged Russia's image in Canada, ambassador Vitaly Churkin expressed his condolences and vowed that the disgraced diplomat would get a proper trial in Moscow.
Knyazev was fired from the diplomatic corps shortly after his return to Russia — a punishment observers said was harsh treatment for a career man.
By way of further consolation to Doré and MacLean's family, Churkin suggested that a jail sentence in Russia — where a prison term of any length can be a sentence of death by tuberculosis — would likely be far more serious punishment than a spell behind bars in Canada.
Having taken a 12-month beating in Canada, Russia's reputation followed Knyazev into a Moscow courtroom last week.
But by showcasing critical inadequacies in the Russian court system, as well as character problems at the Russian embassy in Ottawa, the proceedings have only further damaged Russian pride.
Knyazev's trial turned embarrassing for Russia even before it began.
Originally scheduled for Feb. 12, it was postponed at the last moment after the Russian government failed to issue visas for Canadian relatives — Donald MacLean, the dead woman's brother, and Philippe Doré, whose wife is in a wheelchair — who would present their perspective on the accident.
Doré and MacLean were left scrambling, but they eventually did make it to Moscow.
Once the trial got underway, the embarrassments began in earnest.
First, there was the government translator whose English was so bad that she mistranslated Knyazev's licence plate number. After Canadian embassy officials began making corrections during the proceedings, Judge Yelena Stashina found a new translator from outside government.
With only one set of documents prepared for the judge, prosecutor and defence, and none for the public, exhibits were tightly rationed throughout the proceedings.
An Ottawa police video of the accident scene was never screened.
Despite the fact that the entire case is about a road accident in Ontario, the Ontario Highway Traffic Act could not be referred to in the trial because no translation was prepared for government prosecutor Alexander Tikhonov.
Tikhonov, who seemed somewhat detached, gave a clue to his feelings about Knyazev halfway through the trial when he joked with The Star's translator that, "considering the way the Canadian and the Americans behaved during the Olympics, I think he should be pardoned."
Then, there were the Russian embassy veterans who gave evidence.
Knyazev's defence focused on the unsubstantiated suggestion that the Ottawa police investigation was flawed for political reasons.
To clarify his defence against the drunk-driving evidence gathered by the police — which included two open liquor bottles found in his car and the testimony of five people who said they saw him drinking or smelled liquor on his breath the day of the accident — Knyazev's lawyer argued that Canadian police have "Olympic double standards."
When a letter written by Churkin after the accident was read to the court — a letter in which the ambassador denounced Knyazev as irresponsible, arrogant and a drinker — Knyazev countered that his former boss was trying to "protect the embassy for political reasons."
The defence introduced an earlier letter by Churkin, written shortly before the accident, recommending Knyazev for promotion to a top intelligence job.
It was a recommendation that can only raise further doubts about staffing decisions in the Russian foreign service.
Nor was Russia's image improved by the testimony of Ruslan Abakumov, the former embassy intelligence officer who was a passenger in Knyazev's car when it smashed into the two pedestrians at high speed.
Abakumov first testified he was asleep when Knyazev lost control of the car and didn't know if the driver had been drinking that day.
But moments later, under tough questioning from Judge Stashina, he confirmed reports he'd written soon after the accident that detailed Knyazev's drinking and reckless driving that day.
Worst of all for Russia's image was the performance of defence witness Blochin, the Ottawa embassy's former driver, who unexpectedly bolted from the court during a lunch break, literally running from further questions, after describing the embassy ice-fishing trip as a "tea party."
Whether his escape from prosecution questions was part of the defence's plan is unclear, but Canadian witnesses for the prosecution were taken totally by surprise.
The incident gave the trial "a kind of Alice In Wonderland feel," one Canadian official said.
Despite his travails and the trial's many oddities, Philippe Doré says he trusts that Stashina's verdict will "force Knyazev to face the horrible consequences of his actions."
The prosecutor has called for the maximum penalty — five years in one of Russia's notoriously brutal prison labour camps.
Paul Webster is a Canadian freelance reporter based in Moscow.
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