Mass Shooting Perpetrator Who Killed 8 People In Serbia Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison

UNSPLASH/Hugo Delauney ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - A man who carried out a mass shooting that killed 8 people and injured 12 people in Serbia was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Uros Blazic, 20 years old when he committed a crime in May 2023, admitted to shooting many people at three different locations near the city of Mladenovac.

The shooting came less than 24 hours after a teenager shot dead nine students and a guard at an elementary school in Belgrade in the first mass shooting of a school in the Balkan country.

The shooting shocked Serbia and sparked anti-government protests that ended in the interim elections at the end of the year.

A court in the city of Smederevo found Blazic guilty and sentenced him to 20 years in prison, among others, for the murder and possession of illegal weapons, state TV RTS reported.

The verdict and sentence are not final and Blazing has the right to appeal.

Sasa Panic, the father of two people killed by Blazaric Kristina (18) and Milan (22) told RTS he was not satisfied with the sentence.

"There is no appropriate punishment (for his actions). Even the death penalty is too light," Panic told RTS.

Serbia's maximum sentence is 40 years, but because Blazic was 20 years old when he committed the crime, the maximum he could receive was 20 years, according to Serbian law.