Russian fans jailed for Euro 2016 trouble to be deported

Aix-en-Provence (France) (AFP) – Three Russians jailed in France following clashes with England fans before their Euro 2016 match in June will be released from prison and deported next month, a lawyer said on Wednesday.

The trio, who filed a request for conditional freedom, will be released on January 9 and expelled January 16, said Alexandre Robelet, the lawyer for Alexei Yerunov, who was initially sentenced to two years behind bars for the Marseille battles on June 11.

His sentence was reduced to 18 months on appeal, while Sergei Gorbachev was jailed for 18 months, cut to 15 months after he too appealed, with Nikolai Morozov receiving the shortest sentence of 12 months.

Even if the three men are released on January 9, they are unlikely to leave prison before they are deported on January 16, according to Robelet.

They were among 43 Russian supporters rounded up in a bus three days after the turmoil surrounding the group stage fixture in Marseille.

Twenty of the Russian fans detained were expelled from France, including Alexander Shprygin, an ultra nationalist activist who heads Russia’s national supporters’ association.

Thirty-five people were injured in the trouble in Marseille, most of them English fans, including two men who were left in a coma.

One British man in his fifties suffered severe injuries when he was beaten on the head with an iron bar.

Six English fans were given shorter jail sentences for the violence.