MOSCOW, March 3 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Supreme Court has refused to review the sentence of the Pussy Riot punk band members, the court’s press office told RAPSI on Tuesday.

The court thus dismissed an appeal filed by the band member Yekaterina Samutsevich seeking reversal of the verdict.

Last April, the Moscow City Court excluded the hate motive against a social group of Orthodox Christians from the judgment. The sentence of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina was mitigated for one month. However, the court refused to vacate the sentence.

By that time, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina have been already released from prison and Samutsevich's verdict has been changed to a suspended sentence.

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, Alyokhina and 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. In December 2013, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were pardoned under the amnesty dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Russian Constitution.