Pussy Riot member freed as two bandmates face exile to prison camp

Source: Guardian

For seven months, the world got to know Pussy Riot as three women defiantly smirking inside a glass cage as they issued a rare challenge to Vladimir Putin and the justice system that serves him. On Wednesday, the trio was separated when a Moscow court set free Yekaterina Samutsevich, the oldest and quietest of the Pussy Riot three, while ordering her two bandmates to serve the rest of their two-year sentences in a Russian prison colony.

The two women who remain in jail, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, smiled through light tears after hugging Samutsevich goodbye. They then placed their hands through an opening in the court's glass cage, waiting for guards to cuff their wrists and lead them away.

The release of Samutsevich prompted much speculation in a country enamoured of conspiracy theories. Her fate overshadowed the fact that two women, both mothers to young children, will not be free until March 2014.

A smiling Samutsevich was swarmed by reporters and supporters as she walked out of the court into an autumnal Moscow drizzle. They applauded and shouted "congratulations". One man chanted "glory to Pussy Riot" like a mantra.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/10/pussy-riot-member-free?CMP=twt_gu