Cecchini from Sarajevo, the confession to Fatto Quotidiano: «The worst is seeing people dying […] As long as you hit and see someone who’s no longer moving, who’s dead, that’s one thing […] In the evening I still have nightmares”

The original article it’s behind a paywall (and I don’t have a subscription to Fatto Quotidiano, if anyone has it and has time to post it, welcome), this is a short but significant excerpt that I quote in full:

One of those involved says: «It’s not like the range, it’s not like shooting at a target. The worst is seeing people dying.”

There’s a sniper from Sarajevo who spills the beans. This is a former hunter who says he went to Yugoslavia several times between 1994 and 1995. To shoot. And he says that he is “directly involved” in the story of the weekend snipers. Even if it beat other areas. The man speaks to Marianna Maiorino for Il Fatto Quotidiano. «It’s not like at the range, it’s not like shooting at a target. The worst is seeing people dying. The amputees. Or watch a hemorrhage become unstoppable. As long as you hit and see someone who’s no longer moving, who’s dead, that’s one thing. But when a large caliber bullet takes away an arm, or a leg, things are different. In the evening I still have nightmares,” he says.

The Sarajevo sniper who confesses

«I have always had sympathies for the ultra right. I went to the Balkans because I hated Muslims”, explains the man. He didn’t travel on charter flights from Milan, but he knows there were those who used them. He liked Milosevic: «He took some chestnuts out of the fire for us. Because dogs and pigs come to us and now anyone who comes to Italy has benefits.” And he adds: «Someone from Milan went to have fun, yes, but I don’t think an organization paid for it, maybe they paid for better designed transport». He also claims that it is not true that 100 million were paid to kill a child.

The trip

The trip was organised: “”I paid for the transport, in particular those who made the transfer with the airplane”, who were a “real mercenary” and “risked their license by making unauthorized flight plans at 50 meters over the Adriatic”. The airplanes left from Abruzzo and Puglia and landed in Macedonia or Montenegro. And he adds: “The Serbs very willingly used European people trained in long-distance shooting, because they didn’t have the training nor technical or operational to do certain things. Volunteers is a more correct terminology, as we now see done by some in Ukraine, who cloak themselves up so as not to be recognised.”

The Thunderbolt

He adds: «There were a lot of ex-Folgore (the Italian army parachute brigade, ed.) who went there either on temporary leave or already discharged. And then a lot of foreigners, English in particular, but also French and some Germans.” As weapons he used «hunting rifles found there. But I also managed to get my hands on a PRG and my favorite, the Dragunof, SVD, a Kalashnikov with semi-automatic non-burst fire, 67 centimeter long barrel.” And he concludes: «These are things that you need to try before talking about them. It’s not like on the range.”