A Moscow court has sentenced two prominent Russian soccer players to prison terms for an assault on a government official last year, an attack that sparked wide outrage.
The Presnensky District Court sentenced Aleksandr Kokorin to 18 months in prison, while Pavel Mamayev was ordered to serve 17 months.
Kokorin, a striker with the Zenit St. Petersburg club, and Krasnodar F.C. midfielder Mamayev were charged with battery and premeditated hooliganism in connection with the October 8 assault on Denis Pak.
The two attacked Pak, an ethnic Korean official from the Ministry for Industry and Trade, after he scolded them for behaving improperly in a central Moscow coffee shop.
Two other people have also been charged, including Korkorin's younger brother.
Video taken by a surveillance camera and broadcast by national television stations showed Pak being hit over the head with a chair and slapped in the face.
The four men were also accused of beating Vitaly Solovchuk, a driver for television journalist Olga Ushakova, in a separate altercation near a Moscow hotel on the same day.
The attacks damaged the reputation of Russian soccer after the country's successful hosting of the 2018 World Cup months earlier.
