The probe, opened by the Milan public prosecutor’s office, follows a complaint from journalist and author Ezio Gavazzeni, who claims that “very wealthy people” traveled to Bosnia-Herzegovina to take part in so-called “sniper safaris” during the siege of Sarajevo, BBC reports. Gavazzeni alleges participants paid large sums to kill unarmed men, women, and even children from Serb-controlled positions overlooking the city.
The investigation is being led by counterterrorism prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis, who is reviewing evidence supplied by Gavazzeni, including testimony from a former Bosnian military intelligence officer. According to the officer, Bosnian authorities learned of the alleged “safaris” in late 1993 and informed Italy’s SISMI military intelligence service in early 1994. Months later, SISMI reportedly replied that the trips had been stopped.
“We’ve put a stop to it and there won’t be any more safaris,” an Italian intelligence official allegedly told Bosnian counterparts, according to Ansa. The charges under review include murder.
More than 11,000 people were killed during the four-year siege of Sarajevo, one of the most brutal episodes of the Yugoslav wars. The city was surrounded by Serb forces and relentlessly bombarded and targeted by snipers.
Gavazzeni, known for his reporting on organized crime and terrorism, said he decided to revisit the story after watching Sarajevo Safari, a 2022 documentary by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic, which accused citizens of multiple countries, including Italy, the US, and Russia, of paying for “human hunting” experiences.
He spent months collecting witness statements and documents, eventually handing over a 17-page report to Italian prosecutors in February. His file reportedly includes testimony from former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic.
In an interview with La Repubblica, Gavazzeni said that “many” people were involved, “at least a hundred”, and that Italians alone paid the equivalent of up to €100,000 to take part.
This includes notorious Russian nationalist Eduard Limonov, who was filmed in 1992 shooting a machine gun from Serb positions while accompanied by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, later convicted of genocide.
While Italian authorities are pursuing new leads, British soldiers who served in Bosnia during the 1990s told the BBC they never witnessed or heard of “sniper tourism” and described the idea as “an urban myth.”
