Parents of teenage attacker imprisoned

The parents of a teenager who killed nine children and a security guard in a mass school shooting in Serbia last year have been jailed.

The boy’s father, Vladimir Kecmanoviæ, was sentenced on Monday to 14 and a half years in prison, while his mother, Miljana Kecmanoviæ, was sentenced to three years in prison.

Nemanja Marinkovic, an instructor at the Partizan shooting club who taught the boy how to use a gun, received a sentence of one year and three months.

The boy, who has been held in a psychiatric institution since the May 2023 attack, cannot be tried because he has not reached the age of criminal responsibility.

However, his parents were charged with a “serious act against general security” for failing to properly secure weapons and ammunition. They denied the charges.

His trial was held behind closed doors.

On Monday, at the Belgrade High Court, Vladimir was found guilty of endangering public safety by teaching his son to shoot and failing to secure his gun. He was also convicted of neglect of a minor.

Miljana was found guilty of abandoning a minor, but acquitted of illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.

The boy, identified only as KK, was brought to court in October by a special escort, leaving the psychiatric hospital for the first time since the attack on the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school.

He was questioned as a witness by the judge, the prosecutor, the defense and the lawyers of the relatives of the dead and injured. He also answered questions from the mother of a murdered child.

The parents of the murdered children attended the hearing in hopes of clarifying the motive for the mass shooting of the child.

A lawyer representing the families described it as “one of the most heartbreaking trials I have ever witnessed in my career.”

KK was 13 when he brought a gun to school and opened fire on other children. Eight of the nine children he murdered were girls.

Serbia was plunged into even greater grief less than 48 hours later, when another eight people were shot dead by a 21-year-old man in a village on the outskirts of the capital.

Following testimony at his parents’ trial, the family’s lawyer told reporters that the boy had lived a normal life before the shooting and that no judicial process could establish what led to his attack.