A French cyclist, who was trying to break a world record by crossing Eurasia in the shortest possible time, was arrested in the Russian Far East on suspicion of illegally crossing the border.
“The Uzzuriysk District Court of the Primorye region imposed a preventive detention measure on him until October 4,” judicial sources informed the Interfax agency this Wednesday.
Previously, local authorities reported that the cyclist, Sofiane Sehili, was detained for allegedly illegally crossing the border in the Primorye region, on the shores of the Sea of Japan, which shares a land border with North Korea and China.
The news was first reported by the French newspaper Le Monde, due to the disappearance of the cyclist, who was active on his social media and published daily news about his journey, having already crossed countries such as China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan.
This led to the Russian authorities taking an interest in the French citizen and checking his condition and the conditions of his confinement.
More Read
“It’s a bright cell for two people. He is not alone. The cell is equipped with everything necessary, there is even a television,” explained Vladimir Naidin, president of the commission that looks after the well-being of detainees and prisoners in the region.
According to Naidin, they also contacted the detainee’s wife to explain that “Sehili felt well and had no health problems.”
“Perhaps the cyclist entered the wrong (border) checkpoint where the electronic visa he had was not valid. It is likely that our guards told him that he should go to another checkpoint, but he may have decided to cross the forest illegally,” he explained.
More Read
The Sehili route began in Lisbon and was to end in the Russian city of Vladivostok, about 150 kilometers by road from the Chinese border where the French cyclist should have crossed.
In just over 60 days, the athlete crossed 17 countries and traveled nearly 17,000 kilometers. Sehili had already crossed the Russian border from Georgia to later enter Kazakhstan.
