PETROPAVLOVK-KAMCHATSKY, Far East, April 20 (RIA Novosti) - Two foreigners arrested by border guards in Russia's Far East last week for allegedly entering the country illegally have lodged an appeal against their deportation, a court official said Thursday.
Briton Karl Bushby and American Dimitri Kieffer were arrested April 1 in the village of Uelen in remote Chukotka after crossing the Bering Strait, which separates Russia and North America, as part of a journey from South America to Britain.
The two said they had planned to pass through customs and passport control in the border village of Povideniya, but were lost and found themselves near Uelen, nearly 300km (about 187 miles) away.
A local court in Russia's Far East ruled April 14 that Bushby and Kieffer entered Russia illegally and be deported from the country.
Officials said the pair were in possession of their passports, commercial visas, tents, arctic equipment, satellite telephones, a GPS receiver, a Colt Magnum revolver and bullets.
Bushby and Kieffer deny violation of border-crossing regulations and say the court made the wrong decision, in part because their arguments were poorly translated.
