Russia releases one member of punk band

But it upheld the two-year prison sentences against the two other members.In a major surprise, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was released in the courtroom after her lawyer successfully argued she was not fully involved in the groups cathedral performance of a song opposing President Vladimir Putin.The court gave her a two-year suspended prison camp sentence.Samutsevich walked out into the crush of waiting reporters and hugged her friends and her father, looking dazed and calling the decision completely unexpected.Of course, I am glad but I am upset because of the girls, that their sentences have not been changed, she said, before being quickly ushered by her friends into a waiting car.Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were contesting their conviction for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred over performing the song in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February.The judge at the Moscow city court Larisa Polyakova gave Samutsevich the suspended term. However the two-year prison camp sentences of Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were upheld.The decision was met by cheers in the court and the girls hugged emotionally in their glass cage as they said farewell.This is of course unexpected, Yekaterinas father Stanislav Samutsevich told AFP after the ruling. This is a great happiness.Samutsevich at the first appeals hearing on October 1 she announced she was changing her lawyer and new lawyer argued she had been apprehended before taking part in the performance.Irina Khrunova said a security guard had grabbed her client and her electric guitar as soon as the performance began.The Punk Prayer took place without Samutsevich. She had already been taken out of the church, Khrunova said.