The Milan prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into several Italian citizens who allegedly paid members of the Bosnian Serb army to be allowed to shoot at civilians in Sarajevo during the four-year siege of the city in the 1990s.
More than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by shelling and sniper fire between 1992–1996, in the longest siege in modern history, following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia.
According to the investigation, groups of foreigners, known as “sniper tourists,” paid large sums to participate in the killings, being transported by soldiers from the army of Radovan Karadzic — the former Bosnian Serb leader convicted of genocide — to the hills surrounding the city. They shot at the civilian population for “personal pleasure,” without any political or religious motive.
The investigation, led by prosecutor Alessandro Gobbi, began after a complaint by writer Ezio Gavazzeni, who gathered evidence and testimony for the charges, as well as a report by former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic. Gavazzeni began his investigation after the documentary “Sarajevo Safari” (2022), in which former Serbian soldiers claimed that Westerners paid to shoot civilians from the city’s hills — a claim that Serbian veterans vehemently deny.
According to Gavazzeni, some of the Italian suspects met in Trieste and traveled to Belgrade, from where Serbian soldiers took them to positions around Sarajevo. He describes the phenomenon as “war tourism” and “indifference to evil.”
Some of the identified individuals are expected to be questioned by the prosecution in the coming weeks. The case has brought back memories of the atrocities of the siege of Sarajevo, where civilians – women, men and children – were targeted by snipers, including the infamous killing of the couple Boško Brkić and Admira Ismić in 1993, whose bodies were left for days between the front lines.
The investigation is expected to expand to other Western citizens who may have participated in this macabre crime.
