Russian judge finds punk rock band members guilty

MOSCOW: Three members of a feminist punk band were found guilty on Friday of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for staging an anti-Kremlin protest in a church, in a case that supporters say put President Vladimir Putin's tolerance of dissent on trial.

State prosecutors want the women from the punk rock band jailed for three years over the protest in February in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, but the judge did not immediately issue a sentence as she read out the long verdict.

The three young women, in handcuffs, stood in silence in a glass courtroom cage and at times smiled and laughed to each other as the judge, Marina Syrova, read out the verdict.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Marina Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, stormed the altar of Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February wearing bright ski masks, tights and short skirts and sang a "punk prayer" urging the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin.

"Tolokonnikova, Samutsevich and Alyokhina committed an act of hooliganism, a gross violation of public order showing obvious disrespect for society," the judge said.

She said their brief protest was based on "motives of religious hatred and enmity".