Many foreigners are suspected of paying to shoot besieged civilians in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in the 1990s. An Italian court has opened an investigation.
Horrible hobby. The former mayor of Sarajevo Benjamina Karic announced on Friday, November 14, on Instagram, that he had sent a request for information to the prosecutor’s office of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in connection with his complaint filed three years earlier about “human safaris” carried out by wealthy foreign tourists during the siege of the Bosnian capital, between 1992 and 1995. The case “is the subject of an international investigation and (East) present in global media”welcomed the Bosnian politician on Friday, referring to a judicial investigation opened by the Milan prosecutor’s office.
Thirty years after the end of the Balkan Wars, an Italian court suspects several foreign nationals of having paid members of the Serbian army to shoot Sarajevo residents, including children. This “war tourist” rich people can pay up to 100,000 euros a day, according to a complaint filed with the Milan prosecutor’s office by Italian journalist and writer Ezio Gavanezzi. Here’s what we know about this horrific journey, which took place during a siege that caused 11,500 civilian casualties.
Several investigations are open
Milan prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis, who specializes in the fight against terrorism, opened an investigation against X for “intentional murder aggravated by cruelty and reprehensible motives”. Investigators are trying to identify the Italian national who “paid ‘to play war’ and ‘kill defenseless civilians’ for fun'” in Sarajevo and other cities besieged during the conflict, reported Monday La Republic. When asked by franceinfo, the Italian prosecutor’s office did not provide a response.
The investigation was opened following a complaint filed by Ezio Gavanezzi, dated January 28. In this interview with the Italian daily, the journalist explained that he had carried out his own investigation for a year and a half, collecting evidence and testimonies, before submitting a seventeen-page report to the transalpine justice system. In this presentation of facts, produced with the help of his lawyer Nicola Brigida and former judge Guido Salvini, the journalist paints a portrait and modus operandi of these cases. “weekend sniper”what he predicted “at least a hundred.”
The complaint specifically cites a criminal report made by former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic. Bosnian council members filed a complaint with the local prosecutor’s office in 2022, after the emergence of a Slovenian documentary Sarajevo Safaris. “As far as I know, the prosecutor has not yet made a decision to continue the process”said Benjamina Karic in her request for information, sent Thursday to the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Across the Atlantic, pro-Trump representative and soldier Anna Paulina Luna stated the same day in X that she had opened an investigation looking for possible American participants.
Visit organized by Serbian agent
Report by Ezio Gavanezzi, his daily Il Giornale becomes aware, is based on the interrogation of a Serbian prisoner, who served as an escort on a deadly journey. This testimony was reported to Italian journalists by Edin Subasic, a former Bosnian intelligence agent. Among the five “hunters” accompanied by Serbian volunteers from Belgrade to Sarajevo, three Italians were identified: a man from Milan, another from Turin, and the third, the owner of a private clinic specializing in cosmetic surgery in Trieste.
The journey has been made “by plane from Trieste (northern Italy), then by helicopter and vehicle from Serbia, through the war zone, to Sarajevo.” Wearing camouflage clothing, the “hunters” made the round trip by van in less than 72 hours, under the cover of “humanitarian mission”. Thus, they passed through checkpoints in Croatia and Bosnia without incident all the way to Pale, a suburb of Sarajevo, “residence of Serbian army officers”.
These same words were spoken by American volunteer firefighter John Jordan, heard in 2007 during the trial of former Serbian general Dragomir Milosevic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). According to a transcript of his speech, published on a Croatian news site, John Jordan had seen it “foreigners (…) were herded into sniper positions by local residents” in several neighborhoods in Serbian-controlled Sarajevo and in Mostar, in southwestern Bosnia. Wearing a “a mix of civilian and military clothing”the visitors were distinguished by the way they moved and their weapons, different from those brought by local residents. “When someone comes with a weapon like that, it looks like he’s hunting bears in the Black Forest, not fighting on the streets of the Balkans.”John Jordan reports.
According to Ezio Gavanezzi’s report quoted by Il Giornalethe excursion is organized by some kind of travel agency, based on “infrastructure of the former Serbian charter and tourist airline Aviogenex (closed since 2015)which has a branch in Trieste”. This agency sets a price scale according to its victims, from women and the elderly who can be killed for free, to children who are the most expensive targets. The victims did not die immediately, but were seriously injured while waiting for help to arrive, only to be beaten in turn.
Rich shooter looking for “adrenaline”
What is the profile of the shooters? “We’re not just talking about a few psychopaths, we’re talking about countless people from various countries who paid the equivalent of the price of a three-bedroom apartment in Milan today to participate in this ‘safari.’ Rich and powerful people, well integrated into society, with enormous resources at their disposal,” described Ezio Gavanezzi in an interview with La Libre Belgium. Near La Republic, Italian journalists talk about the participants associated with the right-wing circle.
However, “I think there is no motivation (policy)just an urge to feel the adrenaline of shooting man”he said to There Liberate Belgiumafter analyzing the profiles of the shooters with a criminologist. “It was really fun”interrupted Ezio Gavanezzi, explaining “systematic tourism” with organized safari “every weekend” during the three year siege. The journalist mentioned the difficulties in gathering words from his sources: “Fear prevents them from expressing themselves because the ‘clients’ of these ‘human safaris’ are numerous and most of them are still alive.”
Most of the participants come from Northern Italy, and today they are aged 65 to 82 years, explains the journalist from Western France. These people, who “want to kill people and go home unpunished”share a common interest in guns and hunting. Besides Italy, these “hunters” came from France, Germany, England, even Canada and the United States, according to the author.
Intelligence agencies were informed since 1993
Former Bosnian intelligence agent Edin Subasic, one of the Italian journalists’ sources, claimed to have warned, at the end of 1993, “They are responsible for the earthquake (former Italian military intelligence service) in Sarajevo, because there are indications that a tourist group consisting of snipers and hunters will depart from Trieste”according to quotes from the stock exchange, quoted by Parisian.
Several months later, transalpine information confirmed that Trieste was indeed the departure city. However, this didn’t work “no additional information regarding this safari iteration in Sarajevo”or communicate “names of hunters” or “organizer”. “We don’t know if any arrests have been made.”argued Edin Subasic.
According to the former spy, the Bosnian secret service became aware of this safari at the end of 1993. “The Bosnians say that people from the camp opposite pay for the hunting grounds. They take sadistic pleasure in shooting anything that moves, including children and animals. I assume they are rich Serbs. That is a rumor circulating, but we have no proof.” Former officer Michel Goya also heard about this hunting site in 1993, when he was operating in Sarajevo as a peacekeeper in the UN peacekeeping force, he testified to Point.
