An investigation was opened against Italians who allegedly paid members of the Bosnian Serb army to travel to the city of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so they could kill citizens during the siege of the city in the Yugoslav Civil War.
The practice, which has been called “sniper tourism”, involves suspicions that foreigners were transported to the hills of the current capital of Bosnia to shoot the population between 1992 and 1996.
The investigation is conducted by the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office, and seeks to identify the suspects on charges of manslaughter aggravated by cruelty and abject motives.
The case arose from a formal complaint filed by writer Ezio Gavazzeni, who claims to have gathered consistent evidence after years of investigation.
The accusation was reinforced by a report by the former mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karić, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
“There was a traffic of war tourists who went there to kill people,”
In the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted almost four years and became the longest in modern history, more than ten thousand people died under shelling and sniper fire.
The latter were groups of Italian citizens and other nationalities who, in order to be able to shoot at the population for pleasure, paid large sums of money to soldiers from the army of Radovan Karadžić, the former Bosnian Serb leader who was found guilty of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
The complainant stated that “many, many Italians” and even “Germans, French, English” went there for “fun and personal satisfaction”.
He also says he has identified some of the Italian individuals allegedly involved who are expected to be questioned by prosecutors in the coming weeks.
Meša Selimović Avenue, known as Sniper Alley (“Sniper Alley” in Portuguese), connected to Sarajevo airport and became a symbol of everyday terror: crossing the street could mean death and not even buses or trams could escape gunfire; They killed people, including children, at random, as if it were a game.
Documentary inspired investigation that led to the complaint
According to the writer, the investigation began after watching the documentary Sarajevo Safari (2022), by Slovenian director Miran Zupanič, where a former Serbian soldier and a contractor report that groups of Westerners were shooting at civilians for pure fun.
Although Serbian war veterans denied these allegations, he decided to delve deeper into the matter.
“The Saravejo Safari was the starting point. From there, I expanded my investigation until I gathered enough material to present to Milan prosecutors,” said Ezio Gavazzeni.
Lawyer Nicola Brigida, who supports Gavazzeni in the case, states that “the evidence collected after a long investigation is well founded and can lead to a serious investigation to identify the culprits.”
Among the most emblematic victims are Boško Brkić and Admira Ismić, the couple portrayed in the documentary “Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo”, who were shot dead in 1993 while trying to cross a bridge.
The couple’s images went around the world and became a symbol of the brutality and randomness of war.
