Pussy Riot Inmates Freed From Prison on Amnesty Before Olympics
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Two members of the Pussy Riot punk group were freed today under an amnesty signed by President Vladimir Putin months shy of Russia’s first staging of the Winter Olympics and the women’s planned release from prison.
Maria Alekhina left a Nizhny Novgorod penal colony and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was released from a Krasnoyarsk prison, their lawyer Irina Khrunova said in a phone interview. They were arrested for hooliganism after performing a “punk prayer” seeking the Russian leader’s ouster at Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral in February 2012.