Parents of Serbian teenage school shooter sentenced in retrial
A Serbian court has sentenced the parents of a 13-year-old boy who killed 10 people in a Belgrade school shooting to prison terms for neglect and weapons offenses.
In a retrial in Belgrade, the parents of a teenage boy who carried out a deadly school shooting in May 2023 have been given jail sentences. The father, Vladimir Kecmanović, received 14 years and six months in prison, while the mother, Miljana Kecmanović, was sentenced to two years and 11 months.
The boy, aged 13 at the time, shot dead nine children and a security guard at Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school, and another girl later died in hospital. He wounded five other children and a history teacher. Because he was under the age of criminal responsibility, he was placed in a psychiatric institution.
The parents were charged with neglect and abuse of a minor, and the father also faced a charge of serious offense against public safety. The court heard that the boy took two handguns from his father's safe, put them in his backpack, and opened fire in the school hallway and a classroom.
The retrial was ordered in November 2025 after the appeals court found the initial verdict unclear and contradictory. That first trial in 2024 had resulted in a long sentence for the father but the mother was cleared of illegal firearms possession and convicted only of neglect. The retrial began in January 2025.
Both defense and prosecution have appealed the new sentences. A lawyer for the victims' families called the trial a "long fight" that would continue in the appeals court. The shooting was unprecedented in Serbia, where mass shootings were extremely rare and school shootings unheard of. The tragedy sparked mass protests, a gun amnesty, and stricter laws.
