A Russian court on Monday adjourned to October 10 the appeal of three female members of punk band Pussy Riot against their two year prison camp sentence after one of the women renounced her lawyer.
The trio had been found guilty in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for storming into Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February and staging a balaclava-clad performance of a song mocking President Vladimir Putin.
In stormy scenes outside the Moscow city court, police detained several supporters of the women as well as some anti-Pussy Riot activists who came to the courthouse with three inflatable sex dolls in balaclavas signed with the names of the defendants. Five people were detained, police said.
Defendant Yekaterina Samutsevich unexpectedly told the court she wanted to replace her lawyer due to differences of opinion over the case and the judge agreed an adjournment until next week.
Her legal team seemed to be at a loss to explain the move after Samutsevich, 30, appeared smiling and chatting with fellow defendants Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, in their courtroom glass cage surrounded by security guards.
"I would like to renounce my lawyer," Samutsevich, who was represented by lawyer Violetta Volkova, told the court. "My vision of the criminal case is not the same as their (the Pussy Riot defence team's) vision."
Tolokonnikova's lawyer Mark Feigin said Samutsevich had given no warning of her plans at their last meeting. "Some people in her social circle played a negative role in changing her position," he told reporters, without giving further details.
"I think this is done to show that there are divisions in Pussy Riot, to cast a shadow over their lawyers," said rights activist and journalist Zoya Svetova, who visited the women in jail over the weekend.
"Maybe the new lawyer will convince Katya to plead guilty. Maybe she expects to be freed or have her sentence shortened," she told AFP.
The lawyers denied they were trying to delay the case, which has galvanised the opposition and been taken up by world figures ranging from Myanmar democracy icon Aung Sang Suu Kyi to Madonna.
The women are currently being held in a Moscow detention centre and will only be transferred to a prison camp -- where the conditions could be more severe -- once the appeal verdict has been delivered.
In an interview with Poland's Super Express published before the hearing, Samutsevich had indicated she had little hope of being freed soon.
"Nobody intends to take pity on us. Perhaps in their cynicism, the authorities will lower our sentences by a few months, but they won't free us," Samutsevich said.
In Moscow, several dozen Orthodox activists assembled near the courthouse steps with icons and crosses, singing psalms and kneeling to pray.
They then staged a procession around a fountain, shouting: "Christ is Risen!" as is customary during the Orthodox Easter holiday. Some in the procession assaulted a Pussy Riot supporter, tearing up his protest sign.
Some believers who opposed the women's prosecution however said they were not even allowed through the gate to the courthouse. "This case has driven a wedge in the Orthodox community," said a woman holding an icon of Jesus who introduced herself as Yekaterina.
"The teaching of Christ is love and mercy, and I'm appalled that the case uses the Church to justify hatred and violence," she said.
A call by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev for the trio to be given a suspended sentence and released as well as signs of mercy from the powerful Russian Orthodox Church had given rise to some hopes among their supporters.
The three women on February 21 climbed on to an area around the altar in the cathedral in central Moscow and performed a "punk prayer" with the title "Virgin Mary, Redeem Us of Putin".
They were rapidly apprehended by church security guards but only arrested by police in March. Several other Pussy Riot members involved in the action remain at large, despite vows by the authorities to hunt them down.