BELGRADE, May 5. /TASS/. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday that he has proposed that the government revive the use of capital punishment in the country.

"I have proposed to the prime minister [Ana Brnabic] to bring back capital punishment, but she and the government are against it as in this case we would be the only ones along with Belarus to have capital punishment in Europe. Evidently, we cannot [do it] because of some ‘very smart’ conventions. Once I was against the death penalty too, but now I regret that I used to have such a position," he said in an address to the nation.

On May 3, a teenager opened fire on his schoolmates in central Belgrade, killing eight schoolchildren and a security guard and wounding six more students and a teacher, who are now in the hospital. According to the Serbian media, the 13-year-old shooter came to the school with two handguns and two Molotov cocktails. Following the incident, Vucic said that the teenager would be taken to a psychiatric hospital as he cannot be held criminally responsible for what he did due to his young age. A three-day mourning period was declared in the country following the incident.

On Friday night, a young man born in 2002, opened gunfire in the Mladenovac municipality, killing eight and wounding 14 people. The man was detained after a long chase. An investigation is underway.