SERBIA TO LOWER CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY AGE FROM 14 TO 12 AFTER BELGRADE SCHOOL MASSACRE

Thu 04 May 2023:

After the Belgrade school massacre on Wednesday, the Serbian cabinet agreed on Thursday to President Aleksandar Vucic’s proposal to decrease the age of criminal culpability and implement other additional measures. Serbian newspaper Vecernje novosti (Evening news) reported.

“The Ministry of Justice has been entrusted to consider possibility of changing the penal code in order to lower the age limit of criminal responsibility for minors from 14 to 12 years with respect to international and European standards,” the governmental decree was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

According to the report, the government has supported all of Vucic’s proposed measures, including a two-year moratorium on the issuance of permits for the possession and carrying of weapons, revision of previously issued permits, and oversight of compliance with firearms storage rules.

BOY14 OPENS FIRE AT SERBIAN SCHOOL, KILLING EIGHT CHILDREN AND A TEACHER

The president also proposed inspecting all shooting ranges, instituting six-month drug tests in schools, increasing penalties for broadcasters and other media for violence propaganda, restricting access to websites with dangerous content and the darknet, and expanding social service work in the area of violence among minors.

On Wednesday, a shooting took place in a school in the Vrachar municipality in the center of the Serbian capital.

Eight children and a guard were killed, while another six children and a teacher were wounded and transferred to an ambulance center and a children’s hospital.

Later, the Serbian police said that they had detained the 14-year-old teenager on suspicion of shooting at a school. The seventh-grader who had used his father’s gun to commit the crime is thought to have been under the influence of drugs. He reportedly planned the attack a month in advance. The police said that he had a plan of the school building and a list of students he intended to kill.

Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic later said that the perpetrator’s father had been apprehended. He is said to be the legitimate owner of the two pistols found on the shooter, one as the weapon of the crime and the other in his backpack. According to reports, the gunman also had three loaded clips and many Molotov bombs, which he never used.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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