Twenty-nine-year-old Samutsevich is the third alleged Pussy Riot member to be detained on suspicion of participating in an unsanctioned performance at Christ the Savior Cathedral last month. The court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by Samutsevich's defense team to release her.
Samutsevich, along with alleged bandmates Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, face charges of hooliganism for their Feb. 21 "punk prayer." If convicted, the women could be sentenced to up to seven years in prison. The trio has been ordered held in detainment until April 24.
United Russia parliamentarian and Soviet crooner Iosif Kobzon had harsh words on Tuesday for the women accused in the case, which has become a hot topic of discussion in the blogosphere and the media since Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina's arrest on March 3. Kobzon indirectly compared the women to the terrorists responsible for the 2002 Nord-Ost theater hostage crisis.
"Someone led those young people to Nord-Ost. They didn't come up with it themselves. Someone also organized those young women and paid them money. These are some kind of beggarly women whom someone organized," Kobzon said in an interview on opposition TV channel Dozhd.
He also said he sees nothing bad about them going to prison, "if it will be a lesson for others."
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