On November 5, 2025, the Higher Court in Belgrade issued a ruling, published today, stating that the parents of the boy who carried out the shooting at the “Vladislav Ribnikar” Primary School, Vladimir and Miljana Kecmanović, were convicted in a civil lawsuit initiated over the wounding of the boy A.B., and that they must pay compensation in the amount of 2.6 million dinars!
According to the Higher Court’s website, the Kecmanovićs must pay the boy one million dinars for the physical pain suffered, one and a half million for the fear endured, and 100,000 dinars for non-material damage due to disfigurement, while the remaining part of the claim was rejected as unfounded up to the amount sought.
The defendants were ordered to pay the stated amounts with statutory default interest starting from the date of the judgment until payment, within 15 days of receipt of the copy of the judgment, under threat of enforcement, while the claim for statutory default interest in the remaining part, from the date of filing the lawsuit until the judgment, was rejected as unfounded.
In the reasoning of the judgment, among other things, it is stated that in the specific case the minor boy who carried out the shooting at the “Vladislav Ribnikar” Primary School he attended on May 3, 2023, at the age of 13 years and 10 months, by using firearms and ammunition owned by his father Vladimir Kecmanović, committed a mass murder, and on that occasion injured the minor A.B. by shooting him in the left leg.
- Although at the moment of committing the harmful acts the minor who committed the mass murder was under the direct supervision of the “Vladislav Ribnikar” Primary School, the court considers that the defendants Miljana Kecmanović and Vladimir Kecmanović are responsible for the damage caused by their minor child to the minor plaintiff, since the damage occurred as a result of his poor upbringing, that is, failures in upbringing and bad examples given to him by the defendants as parents – the judgment states.
- This is because, in a situation where a parent decides that a minor child should acquire knowledge of handling and using weapons, and by going to a shooting range develops a greater interest in this sport or hobby, and this during a period when the child is still psychophysically developing, while at the same time keeping weapons and ammunition at home, then the parent must treat this with a higher degree of care, that is, adequately secure the weapons and ammunition, remove them from the home, and the like, bearing in mind that it concerns a minor thirteen-year-old child who is in an adolescent period of still early maturation, over whom parents must exercise heightened attention and caution even in circumstances when weapons are not accessible at home and the child has not been trained in their use. The defendant Miljana Kecmanović was aware that the defendant Vladimir Kecmanović was taking their joint minor child to a shooting club for firearms training. Also, the court is of the opinion that the defendants Vladimir and Miljana Kecmanović did not take care of how their minor son spent his time in the period preceding the harmful event, given that he freely made plans and undertook activities in the apartment where he lived with his parents, in preparation for committing the harmful act – it was added in the pronounced judgment.
By such behavior, the court states, the defendants demonstrated failures in the upbringing of the minor child which had negative consequences, since the harmful act by which the minor committed mass murder, killing ten persons, nine of whom were students, and injuring six persons – among them the minor A.B. – represents an antisocial act contrary to basic social values.
- Therefore, the actions of the minor who committed the mass murder should be considered a consequence of failures in his upbringing by the defendants as parents, bearing in mind that the actions of the defendant Vladimir Kecmanović in taking the child to a shooting club and training him to handle air guns and firearms, which the defendant Miljana Kecmanović did not prevent, although she was aware of it, are bad examples that the defendants as parents gave to their child, and the skills and knowledge acquired were demonstrated when on the critical day he used his father’s firearm – the judgment states.
For all the above reasons, the court is of the opinion that the defendants Vladimir and Miljana Kecmanović, as parents, are jointly liable to compensate the non-material damage suffered by the minor plaintiff as a result of the bodily injury caused by being shot in the left leg with a firearm, which was caused by their minor son, and therefore the objections of lack of passive standing in relation to them were assessed as unfounded.
An appeal against this judgment may be lodged with the Belgrade Court of Appeal within 15 days from the date of receipt.
Let us recall that on May 3, 2023, the boy killer at the “Vladislav Ribnikar” Primary School in Vračar, which he himself attended, killed nine children and a school guard with shots from his father’s pistols. After the bloody rampage, he was placed in a psychiatric institution where he remains today, given that at the time of the crime he had not yet turned 14 years of age and is therefore criminally irresponsible.
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Source: Kurir.rs Foto: ST/Vladimir Lukić, Tamara Pavišić, Printscreen, Privatna arhiva