A Belgrade court has sentenced the parents of a 13-year-old boy who carried out a mass shooting at his school to lengthy prison terms. The retrial concluded with father Vladimir Kecmanović receiving 14 years and mother Miljana Kecmanović handed 12 years. They were convicted of child neglect and firearms offences after their son used his father's legally owned guns to kill nine classmates and a guard in May 2023.
The original trial last year saw the father get 10 years and the mother three years, but prosecutors appealed, citing insufficient punishment. The retrial, which dragged on for months, finally ended with the higher sentences. Sources close to the case confirm the court accepted that the parents' negligence directly enabled the tragedy.
Court documents reveal the father kept a safe with a rifle and two pistols unlocked. The boy accessed them easily. The parents claimed they had no idea their son was planning anything violent. But the prosecution painted a damning picture of a household where red flags were ignored. The boy had written a detailed plan, made threats online, and even told a classmate he would 'finish them all'. No one acted.
Serbia has some of the most permissive gun laws in Europe. After the shooting, the government cracked down, but the damage was done. The case became a lightning rod for debates on gun control and parental responsibility. The judge's statement read: 'These parents failed in their fundamental duty. Their negligence cost ten lives.'
The boy, who was 13 at the time and cannot be held criminally responsible under Serbian law, remains in a psychiatric facility. His identity is protected, but his parents' names are now public. They will serve their sentences in different prisons. The father's lawyers have already announced an appeal, arguing the sentence is too harsh. But public sentiment is unforgiving. Protests outside the courthouse demanded life sentences for both.
I've been following this case since day one. The first trial was a joke. Three years for a mother whose child slaughtered ten people? The retrial corrected that. But 12 and 14 years still feels like a slap on the wrist when you think about the lives lost. The real scandal is that the system failed before the shooting. The parents failed. The school failed. The police failed. Everyone saw something, but no one said anything.
Money talks in Serbia. The Kecmanović family had means. They hired top lawyers. But the evidence was overwhelming. The guns were registered to the father, but he kept the keys in a kitchen drawer. The boy took them while his parents slept. This wasn't a moment of madness. It was a chain of negligence that ended in blood.
The retrial verdict sends a message, but it's not enough. Serbia's gun culture is a ticking bomb. Until parents are held truly accountable, until the laws change to lock up guns properly, we'll see this again. I've seen the documents. I've talked to the families of the victims. They're broken. They'll never recover. And two parents going to prison won't bring back their children. But it's a start.
This story is far from over. The appeals will drag on. The political fallout will continue. But for now, the system has delivered a verdict. Whether justice was served is another question. My sources inside the court tell me the judge was under immense pressure. Public outrage demanded blood. The parents became the face of a nation's failure. They'll rot in jail, but the question remains: how many more children will die before Serbia really wakes up?
