The trial of three Russian women who face up to seven years in jail for performing an anti-Vladimir Putin song in a Moscow church got under way on Monday, in a case that has divided the country. Initial hearings in the trial earlier this month saw the court order the three members of rock group Pussy Riot to stay in detention until January 2013, a move their supporters condemned as travesty of justice.
With the initial hearings in the trial now over, Monday's audience will see the first legal arguments in a process that is growing into a landmark event in the struggle between President Putin and the emboldened opposition. The hearing at the packed Khamovnichesky court in Moscow got underway with all three detained present shut in a glass-fronted defendants' box as judge Marina Syrova declared the session open.
In February, the three women climbed into an area reserved for priests in the Church of Christ the Saviour, the country's top Orthodox cathedral, and performed a "punk prayer" against Putin. (RNW)
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