MOSCOW, February 8 (RAPSI) – Football players Pavel Mamayev and Alexander Kokorin have filed cassation appeals against their sentence in a hooliganism case, Mamayev’s attorney Igor Bushmanov has told RAPSI.

The defense demanded to exclude hooligan motives from the count of infliction of non-serious harm to health and impose fine on Mamayev as punishment and to acquit him of battery.

The four men were arrested on October 11, 2018, and charged with hooliganism, battery and intended bodily injury. The defendants initiated two fights in central Moscow in the early morning of that day. According to the police, Vitaly Solovchuk, the driver of Ushakova, 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.

In May 2019, 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. 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. In September 2019, Kokorin, his brother and Mamayev were granted parole and released from prison.