Prosecutors have launched an investigation into tourists accused of paying £70,000 to join a ‘human safari’ during the Siege of Sarajevo – but who are these snipers?
The ‘weekend snipers’ allegedly took part in the four year long siege that took place between April 1992 and February 1996 which caused more than 11,000 deaths.
According to a legal complaint, these tourists were flown from Italy to Bosnia where they would pay to shoot citizens in the besieged city on the weekends.
These alleged weekend trips have been coined as ‘sniper safaris’ with court filings claiming there was an additional cost to kill children.
The investigation, headed by prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis, was launched after journalist Ezio Gavazzeni filed a legal complaint of ‘murder aggravated by cruelty and despicable motives’ against the Italians who travelled to join the killing trips.
Investigators hope to track down those who participated in the alleged ‘safaris’, according to Italian media.
Gavazzeni told La Repubblica that his legal suit ‘exposes a part of society that hides its truth under the carpet.’
He also described those reportedly involved as ‘wealthy people with reputations’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ who paid to kill defenceless civilians.
Although the identities of these ‘weekend snipers’ are not yet known, the workings behind the trips have been discovered.
During the longest siege in history, people would gather in Trieste, northwestern Italy, on Fridays for a weekend of ‘hunting’ – who arranged the trips remains unclear.
After meeting, they would be allegedly flown to the hills surrounding Sarajevo where they would pay President Radovan Karadzic loyalist militias to shoot citizens.
In 2016, President Karadzic was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal. After an appeal in 2019, he was sentenced to life.
Gavazzeni claims the participants were given price lists for the different types of kills, with children costing the most and elderly people free of charge.
He claims participants would go away for the weekend, do the killings and return home, continuing life as normal.
‘[A participant] left Trieste for the manhunt. And then he returned and continued his life as usual, respectable in everyone’s eyes,’ Gavazzeni said.
‘People with a passion for weapons, to indulge, who prefer to go to bed with a rifle, with money at their disposal and the right contacts of facilitators between Italy and Serbia. It’s the indifference of evil: becoming God and remaining unpunished,’ he added.
The 17-page court filing includes different testimonies. One was from an American firefighter, John Jordan, who volunteered during the siege.
He referred to ‘tourist shooters’ who did not seem like locals to him, carrying weapons.
Serbia has denied any involvement in the killings, but investigators believe that their intelligence services may have been aware of the tourist trips.
Dzemil Hodzic, 42, who grew up in Sarajevo in the 1990s told Al Jazeera that the findings came as no surprise to him.
‘My brother was killed by a Serb sniper while he was playing tennis in our neighbourhood. We will never know if it was one of those who paid to do so.’
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