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Moscow City Court adjourns Pussy Riot appeal consideration

The consideration of the cassation appeal has been postponed until October 10 (11:00 MSK)

MOSCOW, October 1 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow City Court on Monday adjourned the consideration of the issue of quashing of the sentence to members of the Pussy Riot girls’ punk group who got two years’ imprisonment for hooliganism in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

The consideration of the cassation appeal has been postponed until October 10 (11:00 MSK) because one of the convicted women – Yekaterina Samutsevich - refused from the services of her lawyers due to the “differences in their positions.” Thus, the court satisfied her motion for the lawyers’ recusal.

“I refuse from the lawyers’ services, as my position does not coincide with their position,” Samutsevich said at a meeting in the Moscow City Court. The Pussy Riot group member signed the application for the cancellation of the contract with her lawyers in the courtroom. She declined to specify the points on which she disagreed with the defence lawyers, when the judge asked her. “I do not have to tell you this now,” Samutsevich said.

According to her, she has a new defence lawyer, but she has not yet signed a contract with him. In this connection she requested to summon to the court her new lawyer.

So, the court adjourned the hearing in order to make a decision on this issue.

The three band members - Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30 - were found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” in August.

Lawyers Violetta Volkova, Mark Feigin and Nikolai Polozov defended the interests of all the three members of the Pussy Riot group at the trial.

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