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HELSINKI (Reuters) - The president of the world's largest mobile phone maker Nokia has been fined for running a red light on an icy Finnish road last winter.
A Nokia spokeswoman said Pekka Ala-Pietila, 44, was caught running through a red light in central Helsinki in February, but declined to give further details, including the size of the fine, saying it was a personal matter.
Finnish traffic fines are levied according to the seriousness of the offence and the size of the offender's income.
Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat said Thursday the fine was 208,000 markka ($31,710).
Ala-Pietila was only three meters (yards) from the light when it turned red and would not have been able to stop on the slippery road in time, police told the paper.
Ala-Pietila has appealed against the size of the fine, pointing to changes in his income, Ilta-Sanomat said. The fine was based on Ala-Pietila's net 1999 income of about 25 million markka, of which the majority came from options.
But this year Ala-Pietila's income is likely to drop as Nokia's share price has fallen along with other tech shares in the wake of global economic cooling and uncertainty over future mobile phone sales, making option sales uneconomical.
Ala-Pietila becomes the latest high-profile Finn to be hit by a hefty traffic fine. Last year, Internet services firm Jippii co-founder Jaakko Rytsola was fined 500,000 markka for speeding, the largest ever traffic ticket in Finland.
