MOSCOW, December 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Maria Alyokhina, a convicted for hooliganism member of the Pussy Riot girls’ punk band, has been amnestied.

“Maria Alyokhina is free! We confirm that Masha is riding in a service car of the chief of correctional camp No 2 to the Nizhny Novgorod railway terminal,” said Pavel Chikov, chairman of the Agora Inter-Regional Association of Human Rights Organizations a lawyer of which represents Alyokhina’s interests.

December 18, lawyer Irina Khrunova said that Members of the Pussy Riot punk group Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina might be released by New Year's Eve.

Another woman from the Pussy Riot band, Yekaterina Samutsevich who was given a suspended sentence, will be amnestied as well, the lawyer said. A resolution on her amnesty will be announced by an inspector of an inspectorate for the implementation of sentences. The only difference the amnesty will make for Yekaterina Samutsevich is that she will no longer have to visit the inspectorate to report her presence, Khrunova said.

Earlier, the Presidium of the Moscow city court had appointed for January 24 the hearings into an appeal, filed by a supervisory body against the verdict passed by the Moscow Khamovniki district court to the Pussy Riot punk group. "I am confident that the three women will come to the hearings on foot,” Khrunova said.

December 18, The State Duma passed at second reading a presidential bill On Amnesty, declared in connection with the 20th anniversary of the Russian Constitution, by 444 out of the overall number of 450 deputies in the State Duma.