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Moscow City Court’s judge gets murder threats over case of footballers Mamaev, Kokorin

The message was received via e-mail

© Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS photohost agency

MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/. The Moscow City Court received an anonymous e-mail message with a murder threat addressed to a judge in the appeal case of Russian footballers Pavel Mamayev and Alexander Kokorin, who are charged with hooliganism and battery, a spokesperson for the court told TASS on Tuesday.

The message was received earlier in the day, when the Moscow City court was hearing an appeal against the custody extension for the footballers, ordered earlier in the month by a lower court.

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow ruled two weeks ago to prolong the custody term for Mamayev and Kokorin until February 8, 2019.

Moscow City Court’s spokeswoman Ulyana Solopova told TASS that while the lawyer’s appeal was examined "the court received an e-mail with threats and warnings" particularly with a murder threat regarding the judge."

Solopova cited an anonymous message, which reads: "I want to leave a complaint or a warning. If Pavel Mamayev and Alexander Kokorin are not set free today, I will be forced to organize a rally this week… As for the judge, he would better start moving around with security guards, because he is not to live at all… Wait for the changes in your life..."

The information about the message, she said, has been passed on to the Moscow police for it to establish the sender and to resort to necessary measures regarding the personal security provision of the judges in the case.

The Moscow City Court’s judge ruled on Tuesday: "To leave the ruling by the Tverskoy Court [of Moscow] unchanged and deny granting the defense counsel’s complaint."

On October 8, FC Krasnodar midfielder Pavel Mamaev and FC Zenit striker Alexander Kokorin were reported to be behind two assaults in downtown Moscow. The first incident took place at around 8:30 a.m. Moscow time, when they attacked a driver of a Mercedes car 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. The car was the property of Channel One TV presenter Olga Ushakova.

After that, the gang, which also included Kokorin’s brother Kirill and their friend Alexander Protasovitsky, stopped in at a cafe on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in downtown Moscow, where they proceeded to beat up director of a department of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Pak. Director of the NAMI State Research Center Sergei Gaisin, who was also at the cafe and tried to calm the young people down, was hit in the face as well by one of them.

The Moscow police detained the footballers on charges of battery and hooliganism. Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court ruled later in October to place them in pretrial custody for two months, until December 8.

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