Supreme Court Orders Review Of Pussy Riot Verdicts

Maria Alyokhina (left) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova pictured in court in October 2012

The Russian Supreme Court has ordered a review of the guilty verdicts handed by a Moscow court to two members of the feminist performance-art group Pussy Riot.

The decision comes three months before Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are due to be released from prison.

The pair are serving two-year sentences in Russian penal colonies after being convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for performing an anti-Kremlin protest in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior in 2012.

The Supreme Court said in a decision posted on its official website that the Moscow court "did not provide any proof that Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were motivated by hatred toward any social group in its verdict."

The decision also says that their status as young mothers of underage children was ignored by the court.

Based on reporting by AFP and Interfax