Pussy Riot-er Asks For Deferred Sentence
A member of feminist punk band Pussy Riot asked a Russian court on Wednesday to let her serve the rest of her two-year sentence when her 5-year-old son is a teenager, arguing that separation from her child now will do irreparable psychological damage. Maria Alekhina is petitioning the court in Berezniki, a remote Ural mountains town near where she is imprisoned, to make the extremely rare decision to let her defer her sentence until her young son is 14. She was convicted last year along with two other band members of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for an anti-President Vladimir Putin stunt in Russia’s main cathedral. One of the women had her sentence suspended on appeal. Alekhina told the court on Wednesday that while she wants her sentence deferred, she refused to plead guilty.
