Sofiane Sehili. Photo: Instagram
A French cyclist who had been detained since early September for illegally crossing the Russian border during a world record attempt has been fined 50,000 rubles (€530) and released by a court in the Primorsky region in Russia’s Far East, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Thursday.
Sofiane Sehili had been attempting to achieve the world’s fastest bicycle crossing of Eurasia, having set off from the Portuguese capital Lisbon on 1 July and intending to end his journey in the Russian port city of Vladivostok.
Having successfully travelled through Tajikistan, Mongolia and China, he encountered difficulties entering Russia from China, however, and was turned away by Chinese border guards at Dongning, as the crossing is only available to local residents, and again at Suifenhe, which is for rail passengers only.
Sehili subsequently tried to enter Russia further south via a forest path, but was arrested by Russian border guards upon entry on 2 September. Two days later, a court ordered that he be remanded for a month in a detention centre in the city of Ussuriysk, where he remained until his sentencing.
While prosecutors had pushed for an even larger fine of 100,000 rubles (€1,050), the court determined that the time Sehili spent in pretrial detention from 4 September to 20 October served as sufficient punishment, and immediately waived the fine.
