Parents of Serbia’s teenage school shooter sentenced again after retrial, court says

A court in Serbia has issued jail terms for the parents of a teenager who carried out a mass shooting at Vladislav Ribnikar school in Belgrade in 2023, according to reporting from BBC World. The decision came after a retrial, which re-examined the parents’ criminal responsibility in the aftermath of the attack.

The BBC report says the shooter was 13 at the time of the killings. He shot dead eight girls, one boy, and a school guard at the school, turning a classroom setting into a national crisis and prompting major scrutiny of how the violence was enabled and managed.

The retrial’s outcome applies to the parents, not the juvenile shooter, and centers on what the prosecution and the court determined about their roles before or around the time of the attack. The BBC report characterizes the decision as “jail terms” imposed on the parents, but it does not provide details in the supplied record about the length of sentences or how the terms compare to any earlier ruling.

Serbia has faced intense public pressure following the 2023 school shooting, both for accountability and for changes to safety measures in schools. Legal proceedings that revisit such cases are often intended to ensure the process conforms to evidentiary and procedural standards, especially when earlier judgments are challenged or require reconsideration.

Because the supplied information focuses on the retrial outcome without additional case specifics, key details such as the exact sentence duration, whether any convictions were modified, and whether the parents can appeal are not confirmed in the material provided. Readers will need to consult the full court reporting for those particulars.

Still, the retrial outcome directly affects the immediate status of the parents’ legal jeopardy and determines whether and when they begin serving their sentences, subject to any subsequent appeals and legal filings. It also reinforces that Serbian courts are continuing to process the responsibilities of adults connected to the events of 2023, even after the shooter’s own status is handled under juvenile-related legal rules.

For families and communities, the decision underscores that the criminal case stemming from the Ribnikar attack has not concluded with the initial proceedings. The parents’ jail terms are a further legal milestone in a case that began with the deaths of nine students and a guard in Belgrade and that has since expanded into a broader institutional and legal reckoning.