Serb veteran dies after killing 13 in gun spree

A SERBIAN war veteran who killed 13 relatives and neighbours in a dawn rampage in a Serbian village this week, before turning the gun on himself, has died in hospital.

Belgrade’s Emergency Hospital said 60-year-old Ljubisa Bogdanovic died yesterday and that his wife, whom he shot in the head and neck, was “in stable condition and recovering from surgery”.

Serbs were stunned by the massacre on Tuesday in a sleepy rural region some 25 miles south-west of the capital, Belgrade. Six men, six women and a two-year old child died, the gunman’s mother and son among them.

The motive is unknown. Police said he had fought in Croatia in 1991 during the Yugoslav wars and that he and his son both lost their jobs last year.

Reports said Bogdanovic’s father and uncle had killed themselves several years ago.

Bogdanovic had a permit for the 9-mm, semi-automatic pistol he used.