The saga for Russian punks, Pussy Riot, is not getting easier. In a bizarre twist, CNN reports that the words "Free Pussy Riot," were written on a wall near a murder scene and now linking the band to the crime. The image above is what was found at the crime scene, lawyers for the band condemn the murders, say the band backed peaceful protest. CNN reported:
Moscow (CNN) -- Police in Russia are investigating the murder of two women found under a slogan backing the female punk rock band Pussy Riot, apparently written in the victims' blood, officials said Thursday.
The words "Free Pussy Riot" were scrawled in English on the apartment wall above the bodies of a 76-year-old woman and her 38-year-old daughter, investigators in Russia's Republic of Tatarstan said in a statement.
The two women, who shared a home, are thought to have died of numerous stab wounds between August 24 and 26 in the city of Kazan, the Tatarstan investigative committee said.
Their bodies were found Wednesday.
An investigation has been launched to uncover the circumstances of the crime, as well as those responsible and their motive, the statement said.
The murder inquiry comes two weeks after a court in Moscow sentenced three members of Pussy Riot to two years' imprisonment, a conviction and verdict that prompted international condemnation.
The three women were found guilty of hooliganism for performing a song critical of President Vladimir Putin in one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most important cathedrals.
Representatives of the jailed band members rejected the supposed link between Pussy Riot and the double murder in Kazan.
"I just found out about the incident in Kazan. Either it's a terrible provocation...Or psychiatry," Violetta Volkova, a lawyer for Pussy Riot, tweeted.
Those responsible "need to be found and punished," she said. - [CNN]
UPDATE: In another twist to the twist, a man has confessed to writing "Free Pussy Riot" and the murders according to the New York Daily News. The News reported:
"MOSCOW — Investigators say police have detained a man who has confessed to killing two women in a central Russian city, and then tried to mislead investigations by scrawling a message at the murder scene demanding freedom for jailed
members of the Pussy Riot band.
The man — a 38-year-old university professor named Igor Danilevsky — was detained Thursday in Kazan, Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Friday. It said Danilevsky wrote “Free Pussy Riot” on a wall in the victims’ blood because he wanted the deaths of the 38-year-old woman he dated and her mother, 76, to appear as if they were a “ritual killing.”
The Committee said Danilevsky had convinced the woman to take out a loan to repay his debts, and promised to marry her. Police had found the knife used to stab the women to death and disfigure their faces and bodies, it said.
Three members of the band were sentenced to two years in prison earlier this month for a February “punk prayer” in Moscow’s main cathedral entreating the Virgin Mary to save Russia from Vladimir Putin, who at the time was on the verge of winning a third term as Russian president.
The trial, widely seen as Kremlin-orchestrated, caused an international furor, with celebrities such as Paul McCartney urging Russian authorities to free the band.
The jailed band members’ attorney had called the two women’s murder “either a horrendous provocation or a psychopathic” case.
Kremlin-friendly media and Orthodox Church clerics had seized upon the alleged link between the murder and the band to lambast the artists and their supporters, and compared them to mass murderer Charles Manson, whose followers used the blood of victims to write on the walls of their houses.
Some Russian publications ran headlines claiming Pussy Riot supporters “committed” or “inspired” the double homicide. The coverage was full of the mostly negative terms used by Kremlin-friendly television networks and media in their coverage of the protesters’ trial." [New York Daily News]
