The Judicial Division for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of Russia determined the criminal case of Pussy Riot, as the press release of the Interregional Human Rights Association “Agora” presented. The press release announces that the Supreme Court expressed its opinion on the illegality of the sentence in the case of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich and sent the criminal case for examining the merits to the Presidium of the Moscow City Court.

      “We do not know what the motivation and grounds are. It may be the absence of crime components, the type and the scale of the punishment or any technical formal grounds” - the representative of Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina, an attorney, a legal analyst of “Agora” association Irina Khrunova said.

      On March 3, 2012, two of the group members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested and charged with hooliganism. A third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was arrested on March 16. Denied bail, they were held in custody until their trial began in late July. On August 17, 2012, the three members were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”, and each was sentenced to two years imprisonment.