PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, May 5 (RIA Novosti) - A district court in Russia's Far East upheld Friday an appeal lodged by two foreigners against deportation after they were convicted of entering Russia illegally, a court official said.
Briton Karl Bushby and American Dimitri Kieffer were arrested April 1 in the village of Uelen in the remote region of 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 ruled April 14 that Bushby and Kieffer had 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 denied violation of border-crossing regulations and said the court had made the wrong decision, in part because their arguments had been poorly translated.
