Security was tight outside Khamovnichesky Court where the trial began in the
same courtroom where Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed billionaire and Putin
critic, was prosecuted last year. Police cordoned off surrounding streets.
The three women were led to a steel and glass dock in handcuffs.
In a statement read to the court by one of their lawyers, the trio denied they
had intended to offend believers, saying their “punk-prayer” had been a
political and aesthetic protest over the Orthodox Church propping up Mr
Putin’s “authoritarian” rule.
Patriarch Kirill openly supported Mr Putin’s return to the presidency.
Prosecutors have asked for the trial to be closed. The judge has yet to make a
decision on that point.
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