MOSCOW, November 19 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) – The Kaluga District Court of the Kaluga Region on Wednesday granted a motion filed by Alexandra Lotkova, who had been sentenced for shooting a non-lethal weapon in the metro on alleged self-defense grounds, to release her on parole, a source close to the case told RAPSI.

Lotkova will be released if the prosecutors do not appeal the ruling within 10 days.

According to the investigators, Lotkova, a third-year student at the Plekhanov Economics University, injured Ivan Belousov and Ibragim Kurbanov after firing a non-lethal weapon in the metro in May 2012.

Non-lethal weapons are intended to be less likely to kill a living target than conventional weapons. It is generally accepted that casualties may occur wherever force is applied, but non-lethal weapons attempt to minimize this risk.

Lotkova claimed that she was innocent and stated that she started shooting to prevent an impending conflict that two young men had initiated against her and her friends. However, the victims claimed that Lotkova's friends initiated the quarrel.

The Tverskoy District Court ruled in March 2013 that Lotkova was guilty of intentionally inflicting serious harm on another individual's health years in prison and sentenced her to three years in prison. The court also ruled that the year that Lotkova spent under house arrest before the trial would count toward her sentence.

Defense attorney Aleksey Parshin claimed the sentence to be ungrounded and based on allegations. The young men were drunk and started the conflict, he said in court. Besides it was Lotkova who visited one of the injured men while he was in hospital to apologize, Parshin added.