Confusion's the word

It is a traveller's nightmare: finding yourself thrown into jail in a strange country because you tried to speak the language but the words came out wrong.

That is what 35-year-old Iranian law professor Norouz Barghi says happened to him in Canada this autumn. He spent almost a month in jail, followed by a weekend in a shelter for the homeless, after an incident on an aeroplane.

Mr Barghi had been travelling for more than 24 hours when his flight landed in Montreal. There, he changed planes for the final leg of his journey to Halifax, where he had enrolled on an English course.

On the Air Canada flight, he became involved in an argument with a flight attendant over the briefcase on his lap. As the attendant tired to place it under his seat, Mr Barghi was overheard warning her to be careful, or the bag might "explode".

He said he had asked her to make an "exception" for his bag, but that his heavy accent may have meant that she did not understand.

The aeroplane did not take off, instead returning to the airport, where Mr Barghi's case was searched. No bomb was found, but he was charged with mischief and detained in jail.

On the following day, a court-appointed lawyer represented him at his bail hearing. He was granted bail, but his lawyer then said that she could no longer represent him because he was too rich. He had told her that he had enough cash in his luggage to pay for his own lawyer and the CA$3,000 (£1,975) bail.

But he did not know where his bag was, so he waited in jail before an inmate alerted the media. Mr Barghi hired another lawyer, but it took a week to track down his possessions and money and bail him out.

By the time a court order to release Mr Barghi came, it was a Friday night and the jail's cashier was no longer working, meaning that he was unable to access any further funds.

Wearing only a light sweater and shoes, he was released. Once he got outside and felt the bitter cold, he demanded to be allowed back into prison. "I told them I wanted to get back to prison. It was too cold," he told CBC, Canada's public broadcaster.

Prison workers were sympathetic, but they were not allowed to let him back in. They made phone calls and helped him find a place a Montreal shelter for homeless men, where he queued in a snowstorm to get a bed for the night.

The situation has made headlines in Canada but, although media coverage has been sympathetic, Mr Barghi still faces criminal charges.

At his trial last week, even the crown prosecutor's key witness, a Canadian naval officer who had been sitting nearby on the flight, told the court that he believed Mr Barghi had fumbled his words. He thought he had had been trying to warn the attendant that his briefcase could spring open.

The bad news for Mr Barghi is that the judge did not accept that his poor English was to blame for the incident. He was found guilty of mischief and will appear in court again on February 5, when he will discover what sentence he faces.

He left the courtroom without speaking to reporters, perhaps fearing that he might make another mistake and end up in more trouble.