MOSCOW, October 4 – RAPSI. Farid Murtazin and Irina Khrunova, the new attorneys of Pussy Riot band member Yekaterina Samutsevich sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism for the performance of a punk rock prayer at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, plan to familiarize themselves with the case materials in time, Khrunova told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com) on Wednesday.

The attorney said that she and Murtazin will manage to go through the case materials in time (by October 10), and therefore they will not be asking the court to grant them additional time.

As for the termination of the contract between Samutsevich and her former attorney Violetta Volkova, Khrunova said that she was not entitled to disclose the details behind Samutsevich's position.

“Yekaterina's position will be announced at the hearing,” Khrunova said.

Murtazin is now also defending a suspect in the May 6 riots case and Khrunova is known to have represented the aggrieved parties in the trial of police officer Denis Yevsyukov, who went on a shooting spree in a Moscow supermarket in 2009 and killed two people. Both lawyers have started to examine the case materials.

Earlier, Samutsevich refused to further use the services of attorney Violetta Volkova.

The appeal of Pussy Riot's sentence will be heard on October 10.

In late February, five young women wearing brightly colored balaclavas stood at the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral and performed a punk rock prayer. Shortly thereafter, an edited video of the performance that was uploaded onto the Internet incited a public outcry.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were convicted of hooliganism and sentenced  to two years in prison on August 17.