Serbian court convicts school shooter’s parents again in retrial

A Belgrade court has again found the parents of the teenager behind Serbia’s deadliest school shooting responsible for the violence that shattered the country’s sense of safety. Vladimir Kecmanović received 14-and-a-half years in prison for failing to secure the handguns used in the attack, while Miljana Kecmanović was sentenced to 35 months for neglect and abuse of a minor.

The retrial in the Higher Court in Belgrade reopened a central question left unresolved since the 3 May 2023 massacre at Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School in the capital’s Vračar district: how far criminal responsibility should reach when a child commits an atrocity with a parent’s firearm. Kosta Kecmanović was 13 at the time, below Serbia’s age of criminal responsibility, and cannot be tried criminally under Serbian law. He is being held in a psychiatric hospital for minors.

The shooting killed eight students and a school guard, and one wounded student later died, bringing the total death toll to 10. It was Serbia’s first school shooting of this kind, and the case has remained one of the most painful in modern Serbian public life. Prosecutors argued that the parents failed to provide adequate psychological support and that the father stored the weapons in a way that allowed access, violating safety rules. The defense disputed the evidence, and both sides still have the right to appeal.

The retrial followed an earlier verdict that was overturned because of procedural breaches, underscoring how the legal aftermath of the massacre is still moving through the courts more than two years later. Beyond the courtroom, the case has become a test of whether Serbia can assign accountability in a tragedy that exposed failures in family supervision, gun storage and wider public safety.

The shooting also helped trigger the Serbia Against Violence protests in May 2023, when tens of thousands of people demanded tighter security, a ban on violent television content and the resignation of senior officials. In response, the government launched a sweeping anti-gun crackdown and amnesty. Police later said more than 100,000 illegal weapons were handed in during that period.

The public reckoning has not faded. On the first anniversary in May 2024, mourners laid flowers and lit candles outside the school, and victims’ parents have continued to push for a memorial center at the site. The retrial verdict keeps pressure on Serbia’s institutions to show that justice in such a case is not only about punishment, but about whether the state can prevent the next catastrophe.