MOSCOW, September 6 (RAPSI) – A court in the Belgorod Region on Friday granted parole to Russian footballers Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamayev, according to a RAPSI correspondent.

They are expected to be released from a penal colony on September 17 if the court ruling is not appealed. However, lawyer Yury Padalko said that the penitentiary administration did not object to the convicts’early release.

The football stars lodged petitions for parole in early August. Kirill Kokorin, brother of Alexander, also petitioned for parole, according to the court’s press service.

On May 8, Kokorin and Mamayev were sentenced to 18 and 17 months in penal colony respectively. Kokorin’s younger brother Kirill and children’s football coach Alexander Protasovitsky received 18 and 17 months in penal colony respectively as requested by the prosecution.

They appealed the ruling but in June the Moscow City Court upheld their prison terms.

The men were found guilty of intended infliction of minor harm to health from molester motives. However, Kokorin’s younger brother was acquitted of beating CEO of the Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute Sergey Gaysin.

On April 17, the Moscow City Court upheld extension of the defendants’ detention until September 25.

The four men were arrested on October 11 and charged with hooliganism, battery and intended bodily injury. The defendants initiated two fights in central Moscow in the early morning of October 11. According to the police, a driver of a Russian TV journalist received a nose fracture during the first incident on a street in central Moscow. Two hours later, Ministry of industry and trade official Denis Pak and CEO of the Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute Sergey Gaysin were assaulted by the footballers in a coffee bar and had to undergo medical treatment, the police stated. Pak reportedly sustained a concussion. The café’s video records showed one of the sportsmen beating up Pak with chair.