Aristocrat Investigated for Disturbing ‘Human Safari’ Killings
Snipers would allegedly pay more to shoot children and women, and would party long into the night afterward.
Chris Helgren/Reuters
An aristocrat is being investigated under suspicion of paying to shoot people in a warzone as part of a horror human safari scandal.
Investigators in Europe are searching for people in Italy, Austria, France, Switzerland, and Belgium they think may have become paid-for weekend snipers during the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s during the Bosnian War.
The Milanese noble is just the latest person connected to an investigation looking into huge sums of money being paid to join the snipers in the hills above the Bosnian capital between 1992 and 1995.
A Bosnian soldier takes aim through the telescope of his rifle from his position overlooking one of the Serb controlled areas of Sarajevo on September 11, 1992.
Corinne Dufka/Reuters
The siege claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people, thousands of whom were civilians.
According to The Times, the hunters would pay extra money to shoot women and children, and then, after a day’s killing, would drink and party hard.
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The allegations first appeared in Miran Zupanic’s documentary Sarajevo Safari.
Italian journalist Ezio Gavazzeni’s new book, Weekend Snipers, now explores the role of Italian shooters, a topic that last year sparked an investigation by an Italian magistrate.
French UN soldiers being evacuated under fire run from Sarajevo's Radio and Television building July 27, 1993.
Chris Helgren/Reuters
Magistrates carrying out investigations are due to meet in late June to coordinate their findings in the EU’s multinational justice agency, Eurojust.
The Times reports, citing sources familiar with the investigation, that Italian magistrates have spoken to four suspects and 20 witnesses.
Among the suspects is a former truck driver, 80, and a 65-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday in northern Italy.
A father and son run to avoid snipers across a sandbagged bridge in the Olympic village area.
Stringer ./Reuters
The source said that a well-known but unnamed aristocrat in Milan was among those being investigated.
“He is due to be questioned,” the source said.
When they raided the 65-year-old man’s home, they found a silencer, and his ex-partner showed them a picture with a pass to enter Bosnia on the back as well as what she alleged was a tally of kills. The Times reports that she also told investigators he had told her he used to leave Milan with “people who became snipers at weekends to kill Muslims.”
The parliament building, seen from the destroyed interior of a downtown hotel, burns after being hit with an artillery shell fired from Serb positions on the hills surrounding Sarajevo in 1992.
Corinne Dufka/Reuters
Speaking to the U.K.-based newspaper, Gavazzeni said, “I was approached by a witness who reported the aristocrat had boasted to friends about the safari more than once over dinner.
“I believe the friends have also been questioned.”
There have also been claims that British, Spanish, Russian, and German shooters were present in the hills over the besieged city.
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