Prosecutors Seek Longer Sentences for Ribnikar Parents

The Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office filed an appeal on July 29 against the Belgrade Higher Court verdict that handed prison terms to Vladimir K. and Miljana K. Prosecutors want longer sentences for the parents of the Ribnikar shooter, and for the mother they are asking for three years, the most the law allows for the offence she was convicted of. The Belgrade Court of Appeal will rule on the request.

The first-instance verdict was delivered on June 18. Vladimir K. received 11 years and 11 months for a grave offence against public safety and two years and 11 months for neglect and abuse of a minor, merged into a single term of 14 years and six months. Miljana K. was given two years and 11 months for neglect and abuse of a minor.

What the appeal asks for

The appeal leaves the legal classification of the offences untouched and challenges only the length of the sentences. Prosecutors are asking for:

• 12 years for Vladimir K. for the grave offence against public safety
• three years for neglect and abuse of a minor
• a merged term of 14 years and 11 months
• three years in prison for Miljana K.

For the father that is five months more than the trial court imposed. For the mother the gap is a single month, but that month is the ceiling. Three years is the statutory maximum for neglect and abuse of a minor, so prosecutors had no room to ask for anything heavier.

Why prosecutors say there are no mitigating circumstances

The appeal argues that the trial court credited the father with circumstances that do not qualify as mitigating. It recalls that Vladimir K. took his son to a shooting range, taught him to handle firearms and kept a large number of weapons in the flat where the children could reach them.

“There are no mitigating circumstances in this case,” the Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office states in its appeal against the first-instance verdict.

That single line carries the whole filing. If the Court of Appeal accepts it, the reasoning that let the trial court sentence the father below the prosecution’s request falls away.

How the case reached this point

On May 3, 2023, the couple’s underage son killed ten people at a primary school in Belgrade, nine of them children, and wounded six others, five of them children.

Three years and roughly six weeks passed between that day and the first-instance verdict. The appeal followed six weeks after the verdict, within the statutory deadline, moving the case from Savska 17a to the Belgrade Court of Appeal.

Until that court rules, the June 18 verdict is not final. The terms of 14 years and six months and of two years and 11 months are still the trial chamber’s proposal rather than a settled outcome. The appellate judges can reject the appeal and confirm the verdict, raise the sentences, or quash the verdict and send the case back for retrial.