Pussy Riot member freed, two head to prison camp

A Moscow court has freed one member of the punk band Pussy Riot, but upheld prison sentences for the other two.

The female trio were found guilty in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for storming into Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February and staging a performance criticising president Vladimir Putin.
Maria Alyokhina, 24, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were each sentenced to two years behind bars for taking part in a protest.
However, at an appeal hearing on Wednesday, the court decided to give Samustsevic a suspended sentence because she did not stand on the altar during the protest.
She has been freed, while Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are expected to be sent to prison colonies, likely far from Moscow.
"We will not stay silent even if we are in Siberia," Alyokhina said.
Earlier the punk group members defiantly maintained their innocence, telling the court their cathedral stunt was aimed at Mr Putin and not religious believers.
'Nothing anti-religious'
The first full appeal hearing against their two-year prison camp sentence came days after Mr Putin gave his backing to the verdict.
His remarks were described by one of the women's lawyers as unacceptable interference in the case.
"There is nothing anti-religious in the actions of Pussy Riot, it was political," Tolokonnikova told the court in her remarks from behind the glass-paned defendants' cage.
"I am ready to apologise if I offended people, but repenting is impossible as that would be acknowledging that our action was anti-religious, which was not the case."
Calls for their freedom have been made by world figures from Madonna to Burma democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
The group has even been nominated for the EU parliament's prestigious Sakharov prize for freedom of thought.
They have been held in a Moscow prison since their March arrest.
Involvement
Samutsevich denied any split between the three group members after she unexpectedly requested a new lawyer at the first hearing of the women's appeal on October 1.
"There is no split in the Pussy Riot group. I do not admit my guilt of hooliganism," she said.
Samutsevich's new lawyer, Irina Khrunova, argued her client did not take part in the so-called Punk Prayer protest with the others since a security guard grabbed her and her electric guitar as soon as the performance began.
"The Punk Prayer took place without Samutsevich. She had already been taken out of the church," Ms Khrunova said.
In a surprising development, the lawyer for the aggrieved, Lev Lyalin, said he agreed with her description of Samutsevich's involvement.
"The actual facts really were laid out by Samutsevich's defence correctly and objectively."
The judge refused two defence requests to call witnesses including investigators, experts and journalists, and to hold a fresh psychological and linguistic evaluation of the content of the women's protest.
Before the appeal process started, a call by prime minister Dmitry Medvedev for the trio to be given a suspended sentence and released, as well as signs of mercy from the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, had given rise to some hopes among their supporters.
@'ABC'