Wealthy “sniper tourists” allegedly paid upward of $140,000 to shoot people during “human safari” trips to a war torn European capital in the 1990s — with an extra fee to kill children.
That’s accorsing to disturbing claims being probed by Italian prosecutors.
The investigation was sparked after an Italian writer alleged he had uncovered evidence that wealthy gun enthusiasts — dubbed “sniper tourists” — would pay Bosnian Serb forces for the chance to gun down residents at random during the four-year siege of the city, the Guardian reported.
More than 10,000 people were killed in Bosnia’s capital city of Sarajevo by snipers and shelling between 1992 and 1996 during the Balkan Wars.
The conflict occurred during the fragmentation of Yugoslavia into separate states.
During the war snipers in tower blocks and the surrounding hills regularly took aim at the residents of Sarajevo.
“There were Germans, French, English … people from all Western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians,” said Ezio Gavazzeni, the investigative writer.
“There were no political or religious motivations. They were rich people who went there for fun and personal satisfaction.
“We are talking about people who love guns who perhaps go to shooting ranges or on safari in Africa.”
Mr Gavazzeni said he first read reports of the alleged tourist-led shootings in Italian media outlets in the 1990s, but started digging deeper after watching a 2022 documentary about a former Serb soldier who claimed foreigners would shoot at residents from the hills in Sarajevo.
He has alleged that Italian suspects would meet in the Italian city of Trieste which bordered the former Yugoslavia. From there the would travel to Belgrade in Serbia and then to the hills looking over Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb soldiers.
He claims a key source was a former Bosnian intelligence officer.
The newly launched probe, being led by prosecutors in Milan, is seeking to identify any Italians involved in the so-called sniper tourism.
Mr Gavazzeni said he had already uncovered the identities of some of the Italians allegedly involved in the massacre and they are expected to be questioned by prosecutors in the coming weeks.
The Bosnian Consulate in Milan said the Bosnian government would offer “total collaboration” amid the probe.
“We are impatient to discover the truth about such a cruel matter in order to close a chapter of history. I am in possession of certain information I will be sharing with the investigators,” a spokesman said.
This article appeared in the New York Post and is reproduced with permission.
