A Moscow court on Friday found guilty three young members of a feminist punk band who captured global attention by defying the Russian authorities and ridiculing President Vladimir Putin in a church.
Judge Marina Syrova said the three Pussy Riot protest band members had displayed a “clear disrespect toward society” by staging their February 21 “Punk Prayer” performance inside Russia’s most important church.
“Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich committed hooliganism — in other words, a grave violation of public order,” she told the packed court room as the defendants exchanged a few quick glances and shook their heads.
“The court finds them quilty. The court reached this decision based on testimony of the defendants themselves and other evidence.”
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich — two of them mothers and none older than 30 — looked wan as they stood inside a glass cage to hear the outcome of Russia’s highest profile trial in years.
Some supporters inside the courtroom bowed their heads as they awaited the sentence for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” to be delivered later Friday.
The prosecution is seeking three years of corrective labour in the toughest facility available for first time female offenders.
The judge opened the hearing with dozens of passionate band and Orthodox Church followers being held apart by riot police and Western diplomats jostling with reporters for a spot inside the courtoom.
Witnesses saw several Pussy Riot supporters — the radical leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov among them — being taken away into waiting vans by police.
“Let Pussy Riot and all their supporters burn in hell,” one church supporter screamed amid the tumult.
The once-unheralded band members have already been held in pre-trial detention for five months despite international protests about their treatment by Putin’s team.
The three have asked the faithful to forgive them for causing offence but vigorously defended their view that Russia had made little progress in the 12 years of Putin’s domination from the worst of its totalitarian days.
