Lawyers for the Pussy Riot punk group are determined to dispute any verdict except a not-guilty one until the group is fully cleared of charges in all courts, including the European Court of Human Rights, the group's lawyer Nikolai Polozov said this week.
Five members of Pussy Riot dressed in balaclava masks performed a "punk prayer service" in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral in February, calling for President Vladimir Putin to go.
Shortly after, their video of the stunt went viral online, provoking a mix of revulsion, amusement and indifference from the public. Three of the group, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, are on trial and await the verdict which will be announced on Friday at Moscow's Khamovnichesky Court.
The prosecution claims Pussy Riot have been proved guilty of hooliganism and is seeking a three-year sentence for each of them. Several plaintiffs in the case have called for a conditional sentence.
“Even now, many people ask why these women have been detained for over five months. If they are sentenced to an even longer term it will have a strong effect on the reputation of the officials,” he said.
Polozov claimed the trial was “more of a show” and “included gross violations of the law.”
“The court was clearly interested in a particular outcome in the trial. Numerous requests by the defense were rejected. Some witnesses of the defense were not allowed to enter the courtroom. The case was obviously fabricated. I had a feeling that the judges just wanted to see the trial fail,” he added.
The case has “implicit political motivations,” Polozov said. This has been proved by repeated comments from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Federation Council Chair Valentina Matviyenko and President Vladimir Putin. During his visit to the London Olympics, for instance, Putin “said what was clearly understood as that the defendants should not be punished so harshly.”
“This can only be interpreted as putting pressure on the case, because Putin contravened the presumption of innocence and gave his recommendations to the court,” Polozov said.
Putin’s comments will have had “a negative effect on the verdict,” and implies the defendants will be found guilty while their defense is trying to prove otherwise, he said.
The case has been blown out of all proportion as a result of a campaign in the federal media that “had been shaping a negative public image of the defendants over the spring.” Polozov says.
Despite what he claims was negative spin by the state television channels, “there was finally a turning point in the public opinion,” Polozov said.
"The first polls showed the majority voted for just any punishment. But starting from late June, an assumption started to prevail that the women were being treated much worse than they deserve for what they’ve done.”
Polozov said the original incident that prompted the investigation and charges - the group's performance of a "punk prayer" stunt in a church - should never have been dealth with a as a criminal offence.
“The wrongdoing was qualified incorrectly. An administrative offense was qualified as a crime,” he stressed.
“If the court had not been politically motivated the trial would have collapsed straight away because this mistake is easy to prove. If Russian courts do not admit it, the European Court will.”
“Unlike the Yukos case which involved piles of accounting reports, this case is absolutely clear,” Polozov added.
“Ethically, I do not approve of what my clients did in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior,” Polozov said. “Of course I would be upset if anything like that was done by a relative of mine. But I’m a lawyer and I clearly know the distinction between ethics and law. Ethics is much broader than law but we should be guided by the latter.”
Polozov thinks the Russian Orthodox Church “did not follow the Christian commandments” and “lost points in the media environment,” with its conduct during the trial.
“A petition for the defendants by the patriarch would greatly influence a more agreeable resolution of the dispute," he said. "If the patriarch forgave the defendants and talked to them, it would have a PR effect similar to Pope John Paul II’s visit to the convicted terrorist who made an attempt on the pope’s life. But the church chose the path of rejection, and that influenced its image badly.” he said.
