Trial of Russia Punk Band Protesters Nears Verdict as West Watches

The trial of all-girl punk band Pussy Riot, who performed a song criticizing President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's biggest church, resumed Monday with sentencing expected as early as this week.

Western diplomats squeezed into the courtroom as day six of the trial got underway, with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich sitting inside a glass enclosure reserved for defendants.

"Everyone I've spoken to assumes conviction but hoping for lighter sentence, not seven years," British parliament member Kerry McCarthy tweeted from inside the crammed courtroom.

Britain and other Western states view Moscow's latest politically-tinged trial as symbolic of renewed pressure on freedoms in Russia since Putin's return to the Kremlin for a third term.

The Kremlin has already introduced tougher penalties on protests and labeled Western-funded rights organizations "foreign agents" subject to stringent new government checks, since his re-election in February.

The three women, all in their 20s, have been charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for shouting out their anti-Putin song from the altar of the Christ the Savior Cathedral in February.

Putin himself weighed in on the incident for the first time last week, saying he personally thought the band "should not be judged too severely".

Prominent heads of the youth-driven protest movement that shook Moscow this winter meanwhile are facing probes and various criminal charges. Russia charged one of Putin's most vocal critics, anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, with embezzlement last month, reviving a case that could put him behind bars for 10 years.

The Pussy Riot case stems in part from those protests and a time when parts of the ruling elite -- including the Russian Orthodox Church -- began feeling waves of resentment for the first time since the days of the Soviet collapse.

Russian opinion polls show growing numbers condemning the group's performance while calling the state's response too harsh.

Yet the band's lawyers remain pessimistic after the judge on Friday threw out most of the planned defense testimony.

Russia's courts are officially independent but have rarely strayed far from the Kremlin on rulings watched by the national media and of importance in Moscow's relations with the West.

The trial is the most closely watched in Russia since a controversial hearing in 2010 extended the jail term of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The former Yukos oil company boss was tried in the same Moscow courtroom and sat in a similar glass enclosure. Khodorkovsky said Monday he felt shame for his country as he watched the case from his Karelia region prison cell.

"I am very ashamed and hurt. And not because of these girls -- the mistakes of youthful radicalism can be forgiven -- but for the state, which is profaning our Russia with its complete and utter lack of conscience," Khodorkovsky said in a statement.

The case has also grabbed the attention of such global stars as Sting and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose lead singer recently performed in a Pussy Riot shirt at a Saint Petersburg concert.