Court jails Bosnian janitor 42 years in prison for triple murder

A Bosnian high school janitor who shot three co-workers dead last year was sentenced to 42 years in prison on Monday, prosecutors said.

Mehemed Vukalic was found guilty of murdering the principal, a secretary, and an English teacher at a high school in the northwestern town of Sanski Most.

The shooting occurred before the school term began, and no children were at the school at the time.

After shooting the man and the two women, he attempted to kill himself, but survived with serious injuries.

In a statement, regional prosecutors said that the 62-year-old was handed a 42-year sentence on Monday “for triple murder and illegal possession” of a Kalashnikov rifle.

According to local media, Vukalic voiced remorse for the crime during the trial.

His lawyer had argued that his client was not aware of what he was doing and that he had been a victim of discrimination at the workplace that allegedly “affected his mental state”, media reported.

But the prosecutors sought a severe sentence due to the “gravity and brutality” of the crime.

The sentence, one of the heaviest handed down by local courts in recent years, can be appealed.

The maximum possible prison term in Bosnia is 45 years.

A large number of weapons continue to circulate in the Balkans following the bloody conflicts during Yugoslavia’s disintegration in the 1990s.

Despite attempts to collect illegal weapons in the years after Bosnia’s 1992–1995 war, the country has more than 31 firearms for every 100 civilians, according to the Small Arms Survey project.

AFP