(AP) - A Marseille court has convicted six English soccer fans and handed prison sentences ranging from one-to-three months to five of them for involvement in rioting at the European Championship.
The swift sentencing Monday appeared aimed at sending a message to potential hooligans for the rest of the month-long tournament being played in cities throughout France.
Defense lawyer Henri Viguier says the sentences were a consequence of a climate of fear surrounding Euro 2016 and "in another context, the sentences would have been totally different."
At the same court, a French man was sentenced to a year in prison and an Austrian was given a five-month prison term, also for involvement in the three days of rioting that left the streets of Marseille littered with broken glass and furniture ripped from terraces.
One English man was given a suspended one-month sentence and all the foreigners were banned from France for two years.
There were no Russians on trial, despite a Marseille prosecutor earlier in the day blaming "highly trained" Russian thugs for the worst of the violence in the cobbled streets of the city's Old Port and around the Stade Velodrome.
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