The trial of the parents of a teenager, who is alleged to have committed a mass shooting at his school last May resulting in the death of 10 individuals and injury of six others, began on Monday in Serbia. The incident had a profound impact on the Balkan country, leaving its citizens in a state of shock.
Due to his age, 13-year-old Kosta Kecmanovic, the alleged perpetrator of the shooting, is being detained in a mental hospital and is exempt from criminal liability according to Serbian law. The father and mother were accused of committing a “grave offence against public safety” due to their failure to protect the firearm and ammunition involved in the incident.
The High Court in Belgrade, the capital, has chosen to maintain the complete confidentiality of the proceedings, disregarding the defence counsel’s requests for transparency. According to local media sources, the pair allegedly hugged and shed tears together in the courtroom.
The incident that occurred on May 4th in Belgrade, when a school shooting resulted in the deaths of nine students and a security guard, was followed by another act of mass murder the following day in central Serbia, resulting in the deaths of eight individuals and the injury of 14 more. The occurrence of these two incidents resulted in a prolonged period of demonstrations against Serbia’s populist leader, Aleksandar Vucic. The rallies were primarily driven by the accusation that Vucic had fostered a climate of aggression in a nation that saw a succession of brutal conflicts throughout the 1990s.
