The Oulu District Court has issued verdicts in the case of three foreign men caught illegally crossing the border in Kuusamo, part of Koillismaa in Northern Ostrobothnia.

The three men were found in the border zone between Finland and Russia in late January. Two of them had crossed briefly onto the Russian side of the border. The border zone is about three kilometres wide.

Border Guard Captain Mauri Nygård told the Finnish news agency STT that the suspects were tourists from the Netherlands. He said that the men crossed the border out of curiosity.

The Border Guard said that it received a tip-off about the men's movements from a member of the public. Based on this information, it was able to track down and detain the suspects.

The trio confessed to what happened during police questioning. However, one of the men who crossed the border said that he had done so by accident. The third man, who remained in the border zone, told a similar account.

None of the three appeared at the trial. The Oulu District Court tried them in absentia.

Court: Defendants' accounts not credible

The verdict was based on the men's confessions during interrogations and police photographs showing two of the men’s shoe prints heading to and from the Russian border post. The prints matched the shoes the men had been wearing.

The District Court did not believe their claims that the border-crossing was accidental. It ruled that the men must have known that they were in a restricted area, as there are several prohibition signs in many different languages.

The men who crossed the border, born in 1983 and 1968, were sentenced to 35 day fines for a state border crime. The third man, born in 1962, who remained in the border zone, was sentenced to 15 day fines for a minor state border offense.

The judgment is not final, meaning it can be appealed to the Court of Appeal.

The border commissioner of the Kainuu region was in contact with the corresponding official of Russia's Uhtua region regarding the incident.

The Finnish-Russian border has been almost entirely closed since late 2023.