Uroš Blažić is back in the courtroom: A scheduled public hearing on the massacre in Dubona and Malo Orašje

Last December, Uroš Blažić was sentenced by the High Court in Smederevo to a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the massacre that took place on May 4, 2023, in the villages of Dubona and Malo Orašje near Mladenovac and Smederevo.

As the court found, Blažić killed nine people with shots from a firearm, while seriously wounding 12 of them.

His father Radiša was also punished with the same verdict. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for acquiring the weapon with which his son committed mass murder.

"For Uroš Blažić, the maximum possible sentence was 20 years in prison because he was not yet 21 years old at the time of the commission of the crime, so he was tried as a minor," explains the Kurir source.

After the verdict, the condemned Blažić appealed against it. On the other hand, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Smederevo believes that the complaints should be rejected.

"The appeals against the verdict came to the court in January and February of this year, and the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Smederevo responded to them and proposed to the Court of Appeal to reject them and confirm the first-instance verdict.

On May 8, four days after the second anniversary of the massacre, the Court of Appeal will consider the appeals in a public session - says a Kurir source.

In the explanation of the first-instance verdict, the judge of the High Court in Smederevo, Lidija Jovanovska, pointed out that the decision is not fair, but it is the only possible one.

"The court made its decision based on all the evidence presented. Uroš Blažić admitted to committing all the criminal acts. From his defense and the evidence, the manner in which he committed the criminal acts emerges. It has been proven that it was Uroš Blažić who fired the firearm. All available evidence and expertise point to that."

"On a critical occasion, he acted with intent, aware of his actions and the prohibition of his behavior. The court found beyond a doubt that the defendant Blažić committed all four criminal acts charged against him, the court sentenced him to individual prison sentences for each act. When it comes to a single prison sentence, the court was bound by the law, because Uroš Blažić was 20 years old and belongs to the category of minors who cannot be sentenced to more than 20 years imprisonment," the judge said.

By the way, Blažić was tried in the building of the Special Court in Belgrade for security reasons.