Nadezhda Tolokonnikova found in Siberia prison hospital

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has been found in a prison hospital in western Siberia, her husband announced.

Pyotr Verzilov has spoken to his wife for the first time since she went missing 26 days ago.

He said she was undergoing tests for “various conditions” at the Tuberculosis Hospital No 1 in Krasnoyarsk.

But he added that she does not have tuberculosis.

Pyotr Verzilov said his wife had told him that conditions at the hospital were much better than at the penal colony in Mordovia, where she had been held previously, and that she had not been beaten during the 26 days she was missing.

Russian prison authorities issued a statement confirming that “convict Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has arrived to the institution of the Russian prison service in the Krasnoyarsk region”.

A spokesman said her exact location had been sent to her lawyer, who had instructions not to tell anyone else.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and two other Pussy Riot band members were sentenced to two years in jail last year, after staging an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral. In the song they implored the Virgin Mary to “throw Putin out”.

They were charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

One member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released on appeal in October.

After her appeal attempt failed, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova went on hunger strike. She had complained of abuses by prison staff at Mordovia, including working long hours and being denied drinking water in her prison cell. She was moved to a medical unit and her whereabouts were unknown since October.

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