Varvara Karaulova found guilty of attempting to join ISIL

Russian student Varvara Karaulova (Alexandra Ivanova) has been found guilty of attempting to join ISIL.

The student's lawyers maintain that Karaulova was “blindly in love” with her fiancé, who she only later found out was a terrorist recruiter.

In her closing statement in court on Wednesday, Karaulova said that she had made a mistake. “I want to stress one thing in particular. I communicated with a man I loved, not with a member of some organization. I’m sorry this love turned out to be unhealthy,” the Moscow Times cited her as saying.

Karaulova did admit that she had contacted her finance without police supervision after becoming “depressed.”