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Italy is investigating Sarajevo's "sniper tourists"

2025-11-14 22:57:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

An unusual piece of evidence has reopened the wounds of the siege of Sarajevo. More than three decades after the siege, Italian prosecutors have launched an investigation that could shed light on one of the darkest and least-known aspects of the 1992-1995 Bosnian War: the so-called "sniper tourists." Foreign nationals who allegedly paid for so-called "Sarajevo safaris" to shoot civilians in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, which was besieged by Bosnian Serb forces.

The investigation into the alleged snipers began after a complaint was filed by Italian journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni. He presented the Milan Prosecutor's Office with documents and witness statements that he had collected over years of research. In an interview with N1, Gavazzeni explained that the genesis of his work was a 2022 documentary, "Sarajevo Safari," by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic.

Statement by a former secret agent
Edin Subasic, a former officer of the Bosnian Army Secret Service, recounts in the film "Sarajevo Safari" the interrogation of a Serb captured in 1993, who confirmed the existence of "sniper tourists". "The prisoner, a 20-year-old from the Serbian town of Paracin, stated that he had come to Bosnia with a group of volunteers at the invitation of the Serbian Radical Party."

Subaši? told Bosnian television channel FTV that during the war he had also collected information about Italians involved as snipers during the siege of Sarajevo. According to his claims, "the names of some of the perpetrators were found and further investigations may shed light on how the travel, payment and return of the participants were organized." FTV also reports on a "special price list" that depended on the person they wanted to shoot as a sniper: "a man, a woman, a pregnant woman or a child."

The involvement of foreign mercenaries is well documented.
Mirsad Tokaca, director of the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo, told DW that analyses of civilian casualty figures show that snipers killed between 300 and 350 people in Sarajevo. "Almost all the victims were civilians," Tokaca said.

Although there is no exact data on the number of tourist snipers, the involvement of foreign mercenaries in the Bosnian Serb armed forces is well documented: "Our database lists around 300 people from Greece, Russia, Ukraine and other countries who have fought in the Serbian army."

The current investigations by Italian authorities into tourist snipers in the Bosnian War could lead to the first trials against European citizens involved in war crimes outside formal military hierarchies, but with the support or knowledge of a warring party - in this case Bosnian Serb forces./DW