MOSCOW, May 8 (RAPSI) - The Elektrostal city court in Moscow Region on Thursday ordered attorney Violetta Volkova to pay 20,000 rubles ($563) in compensation to Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich, Samutsevich told RAPSI.
Samutsevich filed a lawsuit against Volkova in August 2013. She demanded 2.5 million rubles ($70,428) in compensation for moral harm. She claims that Volkova posted unkind remarks about her on social networks during proceedings against other Pussy Riot members.
The court thus partially granted Samutsevich’s lawsuit. Pussy Riot member will appeal the ruling.
Volkova will also appeal the court’s decision, according to her Twitter account.
In February 2012, five young women wearing brightly colored balaclavas staged a punk rock prayer in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. An edited video of their performance was posted on the Internet and caused a public outcry.
In August 2012, the Khamovnichesky District Court in Moscow sentenced Samutsevich and two other Pussy Riot members - Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova - to two years in a prison settlement for hooliganism.
In October 2012, the Moscow City Court changed Samutsevich's verdict to a suspended sentence and released her immediately based on her new attorneys' argument that she had been seized by security guards prior to reaching the altar.
Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were recently freed after serving nearly 21 months of a two-year sentence for hooliganism. They were jailed for performing the “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Savior cathedral as part of a political protest in 2012.
The activists were pardoned in December 2013, pursuant to a broad amnesty spearheaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin.