Lawyer Khrunova to defend Pussy Riot in Moscow City Court, ECHR
Irina Khrunova, a lawyer for the human rights organization Agora, will represent the interests of the convicted members of the punk group Pussy Riot in the Moscow City Court presidium and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which will try the girls' claims.
"Irina Khrunova will be a lawyer for Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina," Tolokonnikova's husband Pyotr Verzilov told Interfax on Monday.
The Moscow City Court presidium will try the women's supervisory appeals and the European Court of Human Rights will try their claims contesting their illegal arrests and sentence.
Verzilov said other lawyers will be seeking a deferral of the enforcement of the girls' punishment in Mordovia and the Perm region.
"We would not like to advertise the names of these lawyers yet," Verzilov said.
Khrunova became a defense lawyer for Yekaterina Samutsevich at the trial of the cassation appeals contesting the Pussy Riot sentence after she refused the services of lawyers Violetta Volkova, Nikolai Polozov and Mark Feigin. As a result of the trial, the Moscow City Court changed her sentence by giving her a suspended prison sentence. The sentence handed down to Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova was upheld (they were sentenced to two years in a penal colony).