MOSCOW REGION, December 12 (RAPSI) - Russia’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova will lodge a motion for pardoning Varvara Karaulova (Alexandra Ivanova), a former student of the Moscow State University sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for attempting to join the Islamic State militants in Syria, the ombudsman told RAPSI on Tuesday.

Moskalkova said that she is going to begin the work on this matter before the year is out.

On Monday, lawyer Sergey Badamshin told RAPSI that Karaulova had forwarded a request to Moskalkova seeking her assistance in petitioning for pardon.

In December 2016, the Moscow District Military Court found that Karaulova decided to participate in activities of the Islamic State terrorist group, also called ISIS, an organization banned in Russia. The court noted that she shared organization's ideology. Karaulova was given a 4.5-year prison term.

On March 22, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

The second-year student of the Moscow State University’s Faculty of Philosophy decided to join ISIS, an organization banned in Russia, and secretly started off for Istanbul on May 27, 2015.

Karaulova, who later changed her name to Alexandra Ivanova, was arrested on June 4, 2015, 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.