MOSCOW, July 20 (Itar-Tass) —— State prosecutors ask the court to keep the girls from the notorious punk rock group Pussy Riot who are facing hooliganism charges in custody until the trial is over. A petition to this effect was filed on Friday with Moscow’s Khamovniki district court which holds hearing of the case.
According to the prosecutors, the grounds for keeping the girls in custody have not changed.
“Prosecution asks to extend the custody for six more months,” lawyer Mark Feigin confirmed. It means that in case the court sustains this motion, the girls will be kept in custody until the verdict is pronounced.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, the participants in a scandalous punk prayer at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, are charged with hooliganism (part 2, article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code).
According to investigators, Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich, along with other yet unidentified persons (against whom a separate case was opened) “colluded to commit an act of hooliganism on reasons of religious hatred and animosity against a social group and committed provocative and insulting acts in a religious building that attracted attention of worshipers.”
Five young girls in masks and bright clothes appeared in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour on February 21, 2012. They rose to the Ambon and then approached the Altar. With the help of sound amplifying equipment which they had brought into the church, they sang an obscene song for several minutes and insulted the clergymen and the believers. They were ignoring remarks made by the church employees and the visitors and disappeared when the guards wanted to detain them. Later on, the Pussy Riot punk group, notoriously famous for staging similar actions in other places, including on Red Square, claimed responsibility for the punk-prayer.