Serbian mass shooter who killed 9 people gets maximum sentence of 20 years in prison

A Serbian court on Thursday convicted a young man who shot nine people and injured 12 others and sentenced him to 20 years in prison in one of two successive mass killings that rocked the Balkan country last year.

Uros Blazic (21 years old) carried an automatic rifle on May 4, 2023, and opened fire on multiple locations in the villages of Dobona and Malo Orasje, south of Belgrade, and randomly opened fire on young men who were loitering on a spring evening.

The judges said Blazic was “aware of his actions and their illegality, and with his violent behavior he relentlessly killed and injured people.”

The nearby mass killings stunned the country, which was accustomed to wars and crises, but mass shootings were relatively rare. These tragedies later sparked a wave of street protests and a crackdown on widespread illegal gun possession.

The 20-year prison sentence for Blazic is the maximum sentence allowed by Serbian law for people under the age of 21. Blazic was twenty years old when he committed the crime.

Separately, the gunman’s father, Radisa Blazic, was also convicted of illegal possession of the weapons used in the shooting and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Admits to committing ‘heinous acts’

During his trial, the younger Blazic said he could not explain why he killed so many people. He said during closing arguments that he felt like a victim, but there could be no justification for what he did.

He told the court: “I have committed heinous acts and deserve the harshest punishment.” Serbian media reported that Blazic, who had a police record, was known to have violent outbursts and aggressive behavior before the shooting.

The victims’ families and relatives were present in the courtroom in Belgrade during the reading of the verdict. Many of them cried as they entered court Thursday morning, wearing T-shirts bearing pictures of Blazic’s victims.

The Blazic massacre came just one day after a teenager used his father’s bullet and killed nine fellow students and a guard at a primary school in central Belgrade in the first school shooting in Serbia.

The parents of the school shooting suspect appeared in court in Belgrade. The suspect himself was under the age of criminal responsibility and remained in a specialized mental institution.