Two Russian men get jail sentences for Euro 2016 attack

Aix-en-Provence (France) (AFP) – Two Russian men were on Monday sentenced to jail terms of three years and 10 years for a savage attack on an English football supporter at the 2016 European championships.

Mikhail Ivkin received a three-year term and Pavel Kossov the longer sentence for their role in the beating that left Briton Andrew Bache with a brain injury.

Kossov, 34, was accused of throwing the first punch at 55-year-old Bache in the violence that broke out before England played Russia in the southern French port city of Marseille on June 11, 2016.

Bache, from Portsmouth in southern England, has no memory of the events and is too frail to attend the trial. 

The prosecution said the Russians were part of a group of about 150 men, many with martial arts training, who wrought havoc.

Kossov and Ivkin were arrested as they travelled through Germany following a Spartak Moscow fixture in Bilbao in February 2018, 20 months after Bache suffered his life-changing injuries.