The Russian Supreme Court has ordered a review of the guilty verdicts handed to two members of punk band Pussy Riot, three months before the pair are due to be released from prison, it said Thursday.
The highest Russian court reviewed the appeal by jailed Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and ordered the Moscow court that jailed them in August 2012 to review its guilty verdicts.
The two young women are serving two-year sentences in Russian penal colonies after being convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing an anti-Kremlin protest stunt in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
With just three months remaining of their sentence, the Supreme Court ruled that the “hatred” was never proven while their status as young mothers of underage children was ignored.
“The court did not provide any proof that Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were motivated by hatred toward any social group in its verdict,” the Supreme Court said in a decision posted on its official website.
