MOSCOW - The lawyers of the Pussy Riot defendants have appealed the verdict handed down by Moscow's Khamovnichesky Court in the case of the punk-prayer staged by the Pussy Riot band in Christ the Savior's Church in Moscow.
“I have just filed a cassation appeal,” lawyer Nikolai Polozov has told Interfax.
The 15-page appeal asks the cassation court “to declare the verdict
illegal, unfounded and unmotivated and to cancel it” because there were
no crime or motifs of hatred in the girl’s actions, the lawyer said.
“We wrote about violations committed by judge Marina Syrova,
including her illegal rejection of defense pleas, refusal to summon
witnesses for the defense, and so on,” Polozov said.
“But considering how the trial was conducted, the most we can hope
for is to have the sentence reduced by several months,” he said.
The date for the cassation hearing in the Moscow City Court will be announced quite soon, he added.
On Aug.17, three members of the Pussy Riot punk band were
sentenced to two years in a standard-security colony. Later, two more
participants in the Feb. 21 “concert” were put on the wanted list.
