As reported HRT, the court panel of the County Court in Zagreb illegally sentenced LM (20) to 50 years in prison for the aggravated murder of a child with a knife in Prečko Elementary School in December last year, four aggravated attempted murders and 50 criminal offenses of violating the rights of a child.
The announcement of the non-final verdict was closed to the public, and the president of the court council, Iva Gradiški Lovreček, first announced the verdict to the accused, his defense, the prosecutors and the families of the victims, and only then to the journalists.
The indictment filed by the Zagreb County Prosecutor’s Office (ŽDO) charged the 20-year-old with “coming to the Zagreb elementary school during class time, with the preconceived intention to take the lives of children and school staff, and aware that these were children of a low chronological age who were unable to physically resist him.”
Then, according to the indictment filed at the beginning of July this year, he entered the school premises where he attacked the teacher and the children with a knife. During the attack, one child was killed, while the teacher and three children were seriously injured in the attack.
The prosecution previously announced that the defendant physically assaulted and injured children and a teacher in front of ten students of that elementary school.
In the indictment, the Zagreb ŽDO proposed the extension of pre-trial detention against the defendant, whose age is not specified, due to the danger of repeating the criminal offense and because detention is necessary for the smooth development of proceedings for a criminal offense for which a long-term prison sentence is prescribed and for which the circumstances of the commission of the criminal offense are particularly serious.
This is a former student of Prečko Elementary School who, after the knife attack, fled to the nearby Health Center where he attempted suicide.
Because of that tragedy, the next day was a day of mourning throughout Croatia, and the Minister of Education, Radovan Fuchs, announced the mandatory closing of schools.
(TYPE/Source: federalna.ba/HRT/Photo: Illustration/HRT)
