MOSCOW, December 21 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) – Varvara Karaulova, a former student of the Moscow State University, who is to be sentenced Thursday on charges of attempting to join the Islamic State militants in Syria apologized to her parents, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

Karaulova said that she was not a terrorist and never intended to be a terrosist. “I was not going to fight… Only at the border I realized that it all was a big mistake,” she said. Karaulova added that despite spending last year in detention she was glad that events turned out the way they did because she is alive and well and has hope for the future. 

According to Karaulova, her own egocentrism is at fault and events that had happened were just a mistake and an attempt to escape from home.

Prosecutors demanded a five-year jail sentence for Karaulova, while defense lawyers asked the court for acquittal.

Karaulova went on trial on October 5. Her parents, friends as well as teachers of the Moscow State University have been questioned in this case.

The second-year student of the Moscow State University’s Faculty of Philosophy allegedly decided to join the Islamic State terrorist group, also called ISIS, an organization banned in Russia, and secretly started off for Istanbul on May 27, 2015, RAPSI previously reported.

Karaulova was arrested on June 4 near Turkey's border with Syria along with 13 other Russian citizens when attempting to cross into the territory occupied by Islamic State terrorists. In October 2015, she was put in jail. She pleaded not guilty.

In October 2016, Karaulova was expelled from the university.