Russian prosecutors Tuesday sought three years of prison for all-girl band Pussy Riot whose anti-Putin "punk prayer" protest ignited global support from rock stars including visiting pop icon Madonna. The demand for a tough sentence came just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Pussy Riot performance "nothing good" but added that he hoped they would not be "judged too severely" for their February stunt in a Moscow church.
Also Tuesday top EU diplomat Catherine Ashton joined mounting Western diplomatic pressure on the closely watched trial declaring concerns "about irregularities" in the proceedings. State prosecutors however pressed ahead with their charge of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and demanded that the three band members on trial serve their sentence in a penal colony where first time offenders perform corrective labour.
"This crime is severe and the prosecution considers that their correction is only possible in conditions of isolation from society and the punishment needed must be a real deprivation of freedom," said prosecutor Alexander Nikiforov. Their alleged crime involved lead singer Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and her mates Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina bursting into the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on February 21, and asking the Virgin Mary in a song to oust Putin before his election to a third presidential term.
They are being tried in the same Moscow district court where the jailed Yukos oil company boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky underwent a second hearing in 2010 that almost doubled his time in jail on the eve of his scheduled release. The three defendants exchanged a few words after the prosecution asked for the jail term but expressed no outward signs of emotion. Their growing ranks of supporters meanwhile brandished placards outside the court building reading "Dirty tricks do not become the court."
Defence lawyer Mark Feygin warned the authorities that a jail term for the punk rockers could backfire for Putin and his team. "If the authorities decide to sentence them to real time, they should understand (that these protests) will not end here," he said in reference to demonstrations that first broke out on Moscow streets last winter.