Attorney for Russian footballer detained on hooliganism charges

The lawyer for FC Krasnodar midfielder Pavel Mamaev, who is suspected of engaging in a Moscow bar fight, has submitted a court appeal seeking his client’s release, Igor Bushmanov told TASS.

"I have filed an appeal. The hearing of the appeal is scheduled to take place at the Moscow city court (at 10:00 a.m. Moscow time) on October 19," he said.

Apart from Mamaev, the court earlier arrested FC Zenit striker Alexander Kokorin, his brother Kirill and another suspect, Alexander Protasovitsky, placing them in custody until December 8.

On October 8, these individuals were the perpetrators of two assaults in downtown Moscow. The first incident took place at around 8:30 a.m. Moscow time, when several men attacked a driver of a Mercedes near the Peking Hotel in Moscow. They beat the man up, in addition to breaking one of the vehicle’s windows and damaging one of the car’s doors, which belongs to Russian TV presenter Olga Ushakova. After that, the gang stopped in at a cafe on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, where they proceeded to beat up a director of one of the Russian trade ministry’s departments, Denis Pak.

Sergey Gaisin, general director of the Russian State Research Centre NAMI, tried to calm the rowdy perpetrators down but was hit in his face. The Moscow police have launched three criminal investigations into the matter, two of which are based on Article 116 of the Russian Criminal Code (Battery) with the other was launched directly against Kokorin and Mamaev based on the second part of Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code (Conspiracy to commit hooliganism).