FLASH
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An investigation in Italy into organized trips to the Serbian siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war in the 1990s has produced its first suspect. According to Italian media, the Milan Prosecutor's Office has officially registered as a suspect an 80-year-old former truck driver, resident of Pordenone, in northeastern Italy, near the border with Slovenia. He has been called to testify next Monday.
The Carabinieri searched his apartment, where seven legal weapons were found: two pistols, a rifle and four shotguns. The suspect is being investigated for the criminal offense of repeated intentional murder. According to evidence collected by prosecutors, during the war he allegedly boasted that he had “shot people” in Sarajevo.
The prosecutor's order, according to the media, states that the suspect, "in collaboration with still unidentified persons" and within the framework of "a single criminal plan", caused the deaths of "defenseless civilians, including women, the elderly and children", by shooting with sniper rifles from the hills around Sarajevo. Prosecutors are also examining the aggravating circumstance of "heinous motives". Parallel investigations are also underway in France, Switzerland and Belgium, as the suspected participants came from several European countries.
Sarajevo was besieged from 1992–1996 by Bosnian Serb militias. During this period, the infamous “Sniper Road” became a place where civilians risked their lives from gunfire from the surrounding hills. It is estimated that over 11,000 civilians were killed during the siege.
The prosecution acted on a 17-page complaint filed by Italian writer and journalist Ezio Gavazzeni, supported by former magistrate Guido Salvini and lawyer Nicola Brigida. Rumors of these so-called “human safaris” had been circulating for years, which were fleshed out in 2023 with the documentary “Sarajevo Safari” by Slovenian director Miran Zupanič.
According to the investigation, ordinary citizens, gun enthusiasts, paid very high sums to travel to Sarajevo and shoot civilians from Serbian militia positions. It is said that the trips were made by flights from Trieste to Belgrade and then by land. The alleged payments ranged from 80 thousand to 100 thousand euros, while the shootings of children, according to evidence, cost even more.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence comes from former Bosnian intelligence agent Edin Subašić, who stated that Bosnian authorities had informed the Italian secret service SISMI, which then announced that the case was closed and that the route used by the “war tourists” had been discontinued in 1994. After the investigation was opened in Milan, former Italian diplomat Michael Giffoni, then deputy head of the diplomatic mission in Sarajevo, publicly confirmed that these “human safaris” had taken place.
In a separate report, Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetić has accused the current Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, of participating in the shooting of civilians during the siege. According to him, Vučić, then secretary general of the Serbian Radical Party, had volunteered for Serbian militia positions. Vučić has denied the accusations, stating that he “did not kill or injure anyone” and that the allegations against him are untrue. / Taken from El Pais
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