Man in his 80s is quizzed over ‘human safari’ hunting trips in Sarajevo
An 80-year-old Italian man has been arrested on suspicion of paying money to shoot fleeing residents of Sarajevo in the 1990s.
In November, prosecutors in Milan opened an investigation into Italian tourists accused of paying £70,000 to join the ‘human safari’, shooting and killing innocent Bosnians.
Prosecutors allege these ‘tourists’, many of whom had ties to far-right circles, paid the Bosnian Serb army for weekend trips to Sarajevo, where they shot from rooftops at the city below.
They paid an additional fee to kill children with the sniper rifles, according to the court filing.
The elderly man, a retired truck driver who lives in a small village near Italy’s border with Slovenia, was arrested after boasting of ‘hunting men’ in the Balkan city.
When police searched his home, they found legally owned handguns, a rifle, and multiple shotguns.
The man has been accused by prosecutors of ‘causing the deaths of defenceless civilians, including women, the elderly, and children, by firing sniper rifles from the hills surrounding the city of Sarajevo’.
There could be more than 100 ‘tourists’ who jetted off to the warzone and may be called to give evidence in the trial as prosecutors continue to gather evidence.
The shooting in the city was so bad that two main streets, Ulica Zmaja od Bosne and Meša Selimović Boulevard, were dubbed ‘sniper alley’.
During the siege, Sarajevo’s electric, gas and water supplies were cut off – leaving those within the city with no access to vital infrastructure.
Former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and the commander of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, Stanislav Galic, were both found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Hague over the attack.
Both were eventually handed sentences of life imprisonment. Karadzic is serving his sentence in the UK, while Galic was taken to Germany.
The siege ended in 1995, leaving 13,952 people dead. 5,434 of these casualties were civilians.
Witness statements collected by journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni found that UK citizens may have also taken part in the ‘murder tourism’.
He revealed to El Mundo that the wealthy clients travelled from a number of countries: the UK, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the US and Canada.
These were individuals who paid to kill children, adults, and the elderly – for sport – hiding in the hills surrounding the Bosnian capital.
‘I was surprised when the rumours circulated about what was happening in Sarajevo without anyone investigating it further,’ Gavazzeni said.’
He added: ‘My hope is that a domino effect will occur. Among other things, because I have been the only one to initiate criminal proceedings in a Western country.
‘Why did no country ever open an investigation? Perhaps because they are powerful, wealthy, and socially influential people.’
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