| Russian court to deliver verdict in Pussy Riot trial on Aug. 17 |
MOSCOW The verdict in the trial of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, whose members called for Vladimir Putin’s ouster at a Moscow church, will be delivered on August 17, judge Marina Syrova said on Wednesday.
“The verdict will be read on August 17 at 3pm (1100 GMT),” Syrova told the court. Prosecutors are seeking a three-year jail sentence for the three women, who are charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
The members of the Pussy Riot punk band likened themselves to Soviet-era dissidents on Wednesday, saying their trial for performing an anti-Kremlin stunt on a cathedral altar was unjust, but that nobody could take away their inner freedom.
To occasional bursts of applause from supporters, the three women were making their last pleas before a court rules whether they are guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for storming the altar of Moscow’s biggest cathedral and beseeching the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin.
“I am not afraid of your poorly concealed fraud of a verdict in this so-called court because it can deprive me of my freedom,” Maria Alyokhina, one of the three, said. “No one will take my inner freedom away.”
The women - Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 - looked pale and tired as they addressed the Moscow court from a glass and metal cage before the judge adjourned the trial until August 17, when the verdict will be issued.
Tolokonnikova welcomed the latest display of support from abroad after American singer Madonna donned the band’s trademark balaclava and stripped to a black bra to show their name on her back during a concert in Moscow on Tuesday night.
“Katya (Samutsevich), Masha (Alyokhina) and I are sitting in jail but I do not believe we have been defeated, just like the dissidents were not defeated. Lost in psychological hospitals and prisons, they served out their sentences.”
Friends and family applauded her in the courtroom.
“With every day, more and more people believe us, and believe in us, and think we should not be behind bars,” Tolokonnikova said.
Agencies
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