Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said three female members of punk band Pussy Riot who were sentenced to two years in jail last month for a political protest in a Moscow cathedral should be freed.

Mr Medvedev, who was president for four years until May, appeared to be trying to disassociate himself from the jail terms which were condemned as excessive by the West and rights groups at home, as well as by liberal Russians.

The three band members – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich – were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred on August 17 after singing a profanity-laced song criticising President Vladimir Putin on the altar of Moscow's main cathedral in February.

They have been in jail since March and their appeal is due to start being heard on October 1.

"The prolongation of their incarceration in the conditions of jail seems to me to be unproductive," Mr Medvedev said yesterday. "A suspended sentence, taking into account time they have already spent [in jail], would be entirely sufficient."

However, Mr Medvedev criticised the women, saying he was "sickened by what they did, by their looks, by the hysteria which followed what had happened".