AP, BBC NEWS (UK)
A Moscow appeals court has freed Yekaterina Samutsevich, one of the convicted women from the punk band Pussy Riot, but upheld two-year jail terms for the other two.
The judge ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich’s sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of Moscow’s main cathedral by guards before she could take part in the protest song for which Samutsevich, 30, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,” AP reports.
BBC News reveals that the decision was met with cheers in court.
Earlier the trio spoke defiantly at the appeal hearing, saying their protest was political and not anti-Church.
Alyokhina added that they had “lost hope in this trial.”
