Several dead after shooting at school: parents of shooter must go to prison!

Belgrade (Serbia) - After a deadly gun attack at a school in Belgrade last year, a Serbian court has sentenced the parents of the 13-year-old shooter to prison.

Ten people were killed in the attack. (archive picture)
Ten people were killed in the attack. (archive picture)  © Darko Vojinovic/AP/dpa

The father, Vladimir Kecmanovic, was sentenced to 14 years and six months in prison, the mother Miljana Kecmanovic to three years, as the court in Belgrade announced on Monday. The perpetrator himself could not be prosecuted due to his age.

During the attack in May 2023, the 13-year-old used a gun belonging to his father to shoot nine pupils and a security guard. The seventh-grader was subsequently arrested in the school playground.

The court found the father guilty of committing "a serious offense against public safety". He was also found guilty of "neglect and abuse of a minor", as was the mother.

The court also imposed a prison sentence of one year and three months on the instructor with whom Vladimir Kecmanovic had, according to the indictment, practised shooting with his son at a shooting range.

Shooter is undergoing psychiatric treatment

The case shook the country - gun attacks with multiple victims were previously rare in Serbia. (archive picture)
The case shook the country - gun attacks with multiple victims were previously rare in Serbia. (archive picture)  © Darko Vojinovic/AP/dpa

Visibly shaken family members of the children who were killed were present when the verdict was announced. A group of schoolchildren laid flowers in front of the courthouse and commemorated the dead with a ten-minute silence.

The underage shooter is housed in a psychiatric ward and left it for the first time in October to testify in the proceedings against his parents.

According to investigations, he had been planning his crime for a month and had drawn up a list of children he wanted to kill.

Just two days after the incident at the school, another gun attack took place in Belgrade, in which a 21-year-old shot nine people from a car. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the beginning of December - the maximum sentence for his age.

The deadly attacks had led to nationwide protests against the government. Tens of thousands of demonstrators also called for an end to the glorification of violence in the media.