BiH Prosecutor’s Office opens investigation into “Sarajevo Safari”

BiH Prosecutor’s Office opens investigation into “Sarajevo Safari”

The Special Department for War Crimes of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has opened a case into the “weekend sniper” case during the siege of Sarajevo, the institution confirmed to Radio Free Europe on February 10.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, concrete investigative actions have been taken by order of the prosecutor. At the end of last year, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent an official request to the Italian authorities and contacted the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, with the aim of verifying the information.

The investigations were prompted after Italian media reported in early November 2025 that the Milan Prosecutor’s Office had opened an investigation based on a complaint by writer and journalist Ezio Gavazzeni. He claims that during the Bosnian war, foreign individuals paid to come to positions of the Army of Republika Srpska and shoot civilians in Sarajevo with snipers.

Gavazzeni has also announced the publication of a book on “sniper safaris”, inspired by the documentary “Sarajevo Safari” by Slovenian author Miran Zupanić.

At the end of January, the Sarajevo City Council gave its consent for the city to join the court proceedings initiated in Milan against the suspects.

Currently under investigation is an 80-year-old Italian citizen, a former truck driver from the province of Pordenone, who was questioned on February 9. Italian prosecutors suspect him, together with as yet unidentified persons, of participating in a criminal plan of sniper activity against civilians in Sarajevo in the period 1992–1995.

According to the media, this is a person with extreme right-wing beliefs, who has openly declared himself a fascist.

During the nearly four years of the siege of Sarajevo, according to data from victims’ associations and decisions by international courts, every tenth child killed lost his life from a sniper bullet, while over 14 children were injured.

However, to date, no individual sniper has been prosecuted by either domestic or international courts.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in its rulings against top officials of Republika Srpska, has found that the sniper campaign was intended to terrorize the civilians of Sarajevo.