MOSCOW, August 3 - RAPSI. Motilda Ivashchenko refused to testify as a witness in the Pussy Riot female punk band case in Moscow's Khamovnichesky District Court due to threats from the defendants' supporters and the LGBT movement, she said, adding that she will be killed if she testifies.

Ivashenko studied at the same university as Maria Alyokhina. She was called to testify on Thursday, but suddenly refused to give testimony.

"Threats are made constantly," she told the Russian Legal Information Agency. "And even yesterday when I left the court, these supporters started coming over to me, insulting me, and threatening me. Eventually, they threatened to kill me. I was lucky to have a police officer near me."

On February 21, five girls wearing brightly colored balaclavas stormed the altar of Christ the Savior Cathedral in downtown Moscow to perform an anti-Putin protest song they called "Holy Sh*t." A video with their performance was posted on the Internet and incited a public uproar.

Group members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich have been in pretrial detention since their arrest in early March for an incident that some have lauded as a valid exercise of free speech, and that others have condemned as blasphemous.

The women face up to seven years in prison.

The court extended their arrest until January 2013.