The parents of the teenage attacker were put behind bars

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

The boy’s father, Vladimir Ketsmanovich, was sentenced on Monday to 14 and a half years of imprisonment, and his mother, Miljana Ketsmanovich, to three years of imprisonment.

Nemanja Marinković, the instructor of the “Partizan” shooting club, who taught the boy how to use a weapon, received a year and three months.

The guy, who is in a psychiatric hospital after the terrorist attack in May 2023, cannot be brought to trial because he has not reached the age of criminal responsibility.

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

Their trial was held behind closed doors.

The Belgrade High Court on Monday found Vladimir guilty of endangering public safety when he taught his son to shoot and did not secure his gun. He was also tried for neglecting a minor.

Miliana was found guilty of neglecting a minor, but acquitted of illegal possession of weapons and ammunition.

The boy, identified only as KK, was brought to court in a special convoy in October, leaving the psychiatric hospital for the first time since the attack at the Wladislav Rybnikar elementary school.

As a witness, he was questioned by the judge, the prosecutor and the defense, and the lawyers of the families of the dead and wounded. He also answered the questions of the mother of the murdered child.

The parents of the murdered children came to the meeting in the hope of shedding light on the motives of the boy’s mass shooting.

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

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

Serbia was further plunged into grief less than 48 hours later when eight more people were shot dead by a 21-year-old man in a village outside the capital.

After testifying at the parents’ trial, the family’s attorney told reporters that the boy had lived a normal life before the shooting and that no trial would be able to determine what led to his attack.