Hackers Take Down Website of Court That Jailed Pussy Riot

The website of the Russian court that handed down a guilty verdict to three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot was taken down by hackers Tuesday morning, according to a group called AnonymousRussia, which claims to be a Russian offshoot of the international hacker collective known as Anonymous. 

Cached pages of Moscow's Khamovniki district court website (amovnichesky.msk.sudrf.ru) indicated that Pussy Riot's latest song in protest of Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefly posted on the site, along with a statement calling for the release of the three imprisoned woman.

According to Reuters, a screenshot later posted by opposition activist Ilya Yashin on Twitter displayed the court's website topped by an inscription reading: "Putin's thieving gang is plundering our country! Wake up, comrades!" The site also reportedly was totally offline for a brief time before being restored to normal operation.

A spokeswoman for Khamovniki district court said that a department of the Supreme Court had asked federal investigators to look into the hacking attack.

The high-profile trial of Pussy Riot ended Friday with a two-year sentence for three female members of the band on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. The charges were the result of the three woman staging a "punk prayer" against President Putin in a Moscow church last February.