Italian prosecutors are investigating allegations that wealthy foreigners paid up to £88,000 to shoot at civilians during the Siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s. The claims, reported by La Repubblica, suggest that far-right extremists and gun enthusiasts from Italy, the United States, Russia and other countries engaged in a form of 'war tourism', paying Serbian forces for the opportunity to fire on residents.
According to journalist Ezio Gavazzeni, a 'price list' existed for targets, with children costing the most, followed by armed men, women, and elderly people who could be killed for free. The trips were allegedly arranged from Trieste, with participants taken to sniper positions in the hills overlooking Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb militias loyal to Radovan Karadzic, later convicted of genocide.
The case was filed by Benjamina Karic, a former mayor of Sarajevo, against persons unknown. Italian prosecutors are working with the Carabinieri's anti-terrorism unit to identify any Italian participants, who could face charges of voluntary homicide aggravated by cruelty. Serbia has denied involvement, but investigators believe its intelligence services may have been aware of the operation.
Witnesses include a former Bosnian intelligence officer who said a captured Serb soldier told him Italians had paid to fire sniper rifles at civilians. In 2007, former US marine John Jordan testified to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that 'tourist shooters' came to Sarajevo 'to take pot shots at civilians for their own gratification'. The Italian intelligence agency SISMI reportedly confirmed at the time that foreign 'weekend snipers' had visited the city.
British journalist Tim Judah, a Balkans specialist, said the allegations are possible but believes the number of participants would have been limited. A known case involved Russian nationalist Eduard Limonov, who was filmed firing on Sarajevo alongside Karadzic in 1992. The siege, which lasted from 1992 to 1996, was the longest in modern European history, with over 11,500 people killed.
