MOSCOW, June 10 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) - The Moscow City Court will hear on June 20 a complaint filed by a student who was sentenced to three years in prison for shooting a non-lethal weapon in the metro, lawyer Yaroslav Pakulin told RAPSI on Monday.

According to the investigators, Alexandra 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 on May 26.

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.

The defendant claimed that she was innocent and stated that she started shooting to prevent an impending conflict between her friends and the two young men, which would mean that her actions should qualify as self-defense. However, the victims claimed that Lotkova's friends initiated the quarrel.

The Tverskoy District Court ruled in March that Lotkova was guilty of intentionally inflicting serious harm on another individual's health, which could have resulted in up to eight years in prison. The court also ruled that the year that Lotkova spent under house arrest before the trial would count toward her sentence.