FLASH
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Shocking new details about the "death safari" organized against civilians during the siege of Sarajevo have been revealed in a new book by Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetić, British media outlet The Times reports .
The book, titled "Pay and Shoot", alleges that wealthy foreigners paid large sums to Bosnian Serb "middlemen" to participate in sniper attacks against civilians between 1992 and 1996.
According to the book's claims, those interested paid up to 80,000 German marks (about $53,000 at the time) to kill middle-aged women.
The “price” reportedly rose to 95,000 marks for young women and up to 110,000 marks (about $72,000 at the time) for pregnant women.
Margetić says the revelations are based on documents given to him by Bosnian intelligence officer Nejad Ugljen, who was killed in 1996. According to the author, Ugljen had collected testimony from members of the Bosnian Serb militia.
“Uglien also wrote that foreigners competed with each other to see who could shoot the most beautiful women,” Margetić told the British newspaper.
The book also mentions the involvement of an unnamed European man. According to testimony recorded by Uglien, the man allegedly arrived in the area by helicopter, lived in Vogošća, near Sarajevo, and sought to shoot children.
At the same time, the author argues that, although foreigners paid Serbian “intermediaries,” the idea of “human safaris” did not come from Serbia, but from Croatia. Margetić links the case to Zvonko Horvatinčić, who is suspected of working for the Yugoslav secret services in Croatia before the wars of the 1990s.
“It was an activity that was controlled by the security services because foreigners were involved,” Margetić explains. “When the siege of Sarajevo began, wealthy Italians approached him in the summer of 1992 to go there.”
The Siege of Sarajevo lasted from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996. Three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and also longer than the Siege of Leningrad, it was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. More than 10,000 people are estimated to have been killed by sniper fire and shelling during the siege.
The new charges follow an investigation launched last year by Italian authorities into allegations that wealthy tourists paid more than $90,000 to take part in such missions. The investigation was opened after statements by investigative writer Ezio Gavacceni, who claimed that “there were Germans, French, English and people from all Western countries who paid huge sums of money to be transported there and shoot civilians.”
The investigation by Italian prosecutors aims to identify any Italians involved in so-called "sniper tourism".
In February, an 80-year-old former truck driver was placed under investigation on multiple counts of premeditated murder in the same case. However, according to Reuters, it has not been clarified whether he was directly involved in the killing.
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