A St. Petersburg court has refused to grant bail to two activists with the radical art group Voina held on hooliganism charges for flipping over police cars as part of a performance in September, Interfax reported.

Prominent British graffiti artist Banksy held a special sale of his works last month, donating proceeds to bail out Leonid Nikolayev and Oleg Vorotnikov, but the judge refused to free them from pretrial detention on bail of 2 million rubles ($66,000) each, citing a lack of information about the person providing the money.

The judge also said Nikolayev might pressure witnesses in the case. No witnesses have been identified publicly, although some of the flipped police cars had officers in them.

Nikolayev and Vorotnikov face up to seven years in prison on hooliganism charges. 

(MT)