(Belgrade) The teenager who opened fire last year on the students of his school in Belgrade, killing nine and a guard, was heard for the first time on Tuesday by a court in the Serbian capital, a hearing at behind closed doors, nothing has leaked out.
The thirteen-year-old boy at the time entered his school on May 3, 2023 armed with a pistol taken from his father before shooting ten people dead there. His age at the time of the events makes him criminally irresponsible in the eyes of Serbian law: he was heard as a witness at his parents’ trial.
“It was one of the hardest court days I have had to experience,” Ognjen Bozovic, lawyer for the victims’ families, told the press. Some parents came to attend the hearing but were unable to speak at the exit, visibly too emotional.
The teenager’s parents have been on trial for several months. The father, accused of “serious act against general security”, faces up to twelve years in prison for having, according to the prosecution, trained his son in the use of weapons, regularly taking him to a shooting range. He is in pre-trial detention.
His mother was indicted after her DNA was found on one of the bullets, but she appeared free.
No details of the trial are public and the prosecutor’s office has warned that it will be extremely attentive to the slightest leak on the content of the teenager’s testimony.
Less than 48 hours after the school shooting, a second killing took place 60 km south of Belgrade. A 21-year-old man then shot eight people with an automatic weapon.
These two tragedies provoked anti-government demonstrations bringing together tens of thousands of people demanding the resignation of certain officials and an end to the glorification of violence and mafia culture in the media.