A Russian court has adjourned an appeal hearing for three members of the Pussy Riot punk band against their conviction for a protest against President Vladimir Putin in a church after one of the trio sacked her lawyers.
About 100 people – supporters in colourful T-shirts as well as mainly elderly Russian Orthodox Christians – filled corridors of the Moscow court and others stood outside.
One of the band, Yekaterina Samutsevich, sitting in a glass and metal courtroom cage alongside her band mates, told the Moscow court she disagreed with her lawyers’ handling of the case and the hearing was put off until October 10th. “My position on the criminal case does not match their [the lawyers’] position,” she told the courtroom. She gave no details.
Western governments have portrayed the trio’s two-year sentences as excessive but many Russians regard the band as irreverent self-publicists.