MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI) — A court in Russia’s Kemerovo region has fined a married couple returning from Egypt for refusing to take a COVID-19 test, the press service of the court informs RAPSI.  

Although administrative fines for violations of legislation in the field of ensuring the sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population range from 15,000 to 40,000 rubles (about $200 to $550), the court, taking into account a number of exceptional circumstances in the case, considered it possible to impose the minimum possible amount of a fine under the relevant articles of the Code of Administrative Offences that is 7,500 rubles ($100) per person, the statement reads.

The defendants clarified that no one had warned them about the necessity to pass the test after arriving from abroad, and that they did not watch TV, where the respective news was broadcasted. One of the spouses, they maintained, filled out some documents after leaving the plane, but did not read what she signed. The couple did not admit guilt in committing the offense.