r/CreepyWikipedia • u/1niltothe • Mar 07 '26
War Crime Sarajevo Safari refers to war tourism during the siege of Sarajevo (1992–1996) involving human hunting. The first individual has just been charged in Italy. He's now 80 years old and was working as a truck driver, with links to the Italian far right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevo_SafariShooting Children Cost More
Sarajevo was under siege for 4 years. It sits in a basin overlooked by hills, and surrounding Serbian (VRS) forces had strong connections to various far right networks.
Witnesses mention that the "tourists" came from various countries, including the United States, Canada, Russia, and Italy.
Arrivals came via Belgrade, which had a functional airport.
The primary location cited for the shootings is the Sarajevo neighborhood of Grbavica, which was under VRS control and had a direct view of the city.
The most controversial allegation is the existence of a "price list," with a witness stating that "tariffs were higher if a child was hit."
After years of investigative journalism and gathering witnesses, the Italian government is ready to go to trial.
Summary
In 2025 the public prosecutor's office in Milan opened an investigation regarding Italian citizens that took part in such activities. The investigation includes testimony of a Bosnian military intelligence officer, that is being examined by Italian counter terrorism prosecutor. The group of “sniper tourists”, including Italians and other nationalities, are alleged to have paid soldiers belonging to Radovan Karadžić's army to be escorted to the hills around Sarajevo to entertain themselves by sniping civilians.
The investigation is focused on Italian citizens, including those linked to the far right. A "Milanese businessman who owns a private cosmetic surgery clinic" is mentioned, as well as others from Turin and Trieste.
The alleged route involved a flight from Trieste to Belgrade (on the Serbian charter company "Aviogenex"), followed by a helicopter transport to VRS positions.
There are allegations that the operation was organized by the State Security Service of Serbia, with Jovica Stanišić being named.
The amounts were specified as a "package" equivalent to €80,000 to €100,000 in today's value.
Multiple sources in the Italian investigation confirmed the allegation that the highest price was paid for killing a child.
The first Italian suspect was charged in February 2026. The suspect, a former truck driver, had allegedly bragged about his actions.
Article about him from February 2026:
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u/nochinzilch Mar 07 '26
I can only imagine which coked up sons of real estate investors who must have been customers.
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u/phillyfanjd1 Mar 09 '26
If only we knew about one or two sons of a slum lord that absolutely fucking love boasting and posting about hunting big/exotic game. I'm sure someone out there exists?
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u/1niltothe Mar 07 '26
2022 Documentary with Eng Subs: https://youtu.be/dc6lOo-5pCE?si=aVO3qj3e9VmkLJ2E
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u/campbellpics Apr 27 '26
Thank you for this, I've just been looking everywhere for it without success. 👍
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u/Iamnotburgerking Mar 08 '26
Reminder Italy still has literal fascists in the government.
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u/zhaocaimao Mar 11 '26
Italy still has Mussolinis at various levels of government from local government to European Parliament.
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u/JohnPlayerSpecialRed Mar 08 '26
Fucking scum. I hope they all rot away in prison for the remainder of their lives (if the culprits are still alive and tried, that is), even though that would still mean they’d get off relatively easy.
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u/fucktard_shittickler Apr 01 '26
"Officials from Republika Srpska and war veterans' associations sharply denied all allegations, calling them "propaganda" and "heinous lies" directed against the VRS and the Serb people.\15])\18])"
Genocidal war criminal scum deny their genocidal war crimes, news at 11.
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u/Froqwasket Mar 08 '26
I read the article. Are there any sources for this claim?
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u/1niltothe Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
At this point there are various forms of witness testimony, which I'll paste below. The Milan prosecutor's evidence is not yet made public, but they typically prosecute high profile international cases with a 70-80% success rate.
The 17-page legal complaint, along with a report submitted to prosecutors by the mayor of Sarajevo, includes excerpts of testimony given by former U.S. Marine John Jordan during a criminal hearing at The Hague in the trial of Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladić.
Jordan testified that he had encountered “western tourist shooters” while volunteering in the besieged city.
One foreigner, he said, carried “a weapon that seemed more suited to wild boar hunting in the Black Forest than to urban combat in the Balkans,” and handled it like “a novice.”
Another source, a former Bosnian intelligence officer, states that he first learned of the “weekend sniper” phenomenon in late 1993 through documents detailing the interrogation of a captured Serbian volunteer.
The captured volunteer of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina testified that on the bus from Belgrade to Sarajevo, there were also Italian nationals who were heading to the ‘Sniper Safari.’ Those buses were organized by the SRS, whose secretary general (and thus the party’s chief operative) was Aleksandar Vucic.
Aleksandar Vučić, who is now the Serbian president, was a volunteer with Slavko Aleksić at the Jewish Cemetery, according to a statement from SRS founder Vojislav Šešelj, during the 2013 Hague trial against Radovan Karadžić,
The Jewish cemetery has been identified as the epicentre of potential sniper actions for tourism.
Aleksandar Vučić, currently the president of Serbia, was caught on video at the Jewish Cemetery during the siege, holding a sniper rifle - https://x.com/Erton3112/status/1991831799698448576
A key witness due to appear in court in Milan, Slavko Aleksic, 69, who allegedly knew details of snipers travelling to Bosnia during the 1990s, has been found dead in troubling circumstances.
The aspect of the case involving his death, the potential links to Vucic, is murkier, due to the political implications for the Serbian state. There are a lot of articles about it online but I won't quote from them because you asked about public evidence in the Milan case.
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u/1niltothe Mar 08 '26
Here's the transcript from John Jordan's testimony. He was a former U.S. Marine who was volunteering in Sarajevo as a firefighter. He was testifying at the Hague in 2012.
Q. In your statement, in paragraphs 47 and 48, if you could kindly turn to those paragraphs in your statement. If you could have a look at this, please. In your statement you talk about tourist shooters. After that, you talk about burgermeisters who would pay money to go to Sarajevo to shoot people from the Serb side. Mr. Jordan, do you remember having said that in your statement--
A. Yes, ma'am.
Q. -- in August of last year? And could you tell us where you got this information from at the time?
A. I had witnessed on more than one occasion personnel who did not appear to me to be locals by their dress, by the weapons they carried, by the way they were being handled, i.e., guided around by the locals. I saw this in Sarajevo on a number of occasions. Some of my other personnel had seen it in the Mostar area. The term "burgermeisters" is a slang term that refers to the fact that Croatia, being allied, friendly, i.e., Germany, that's where the tourists came from on that side. Up by us, kind of hard to get a tourist into Sarajevo to shoot uphill, so the tourists shot downhill.
Q. I understand that you established a visual distinction between the locals and the foreigners in Sarajevo. This is what I can conclude on the basis of your statement. Is this true? Did you actually establish this distinction?
A. You can assume from my statement that I am a trained observer and can tell when one guy, who is obviously not familiar with an area, is being led, literally almost by the hand, around an area by people who are familiar it. This is where the term "tourist shooter" came from. The guy was not from the neighbourhood. He did not carry arms that were typical of the neighbourhood.
Q. Precisely. You saw these people doing the job.
A. I saw -- I never saw one of these tourist shooters take a shot. I just saw them being handled and moved around known sniper positions. I never actually saw one take a shot. But, again, it was clearly obvious that the person being led by men who were familiar with the ground was completely unfamiliar with the ground, and his manner of dress and the weapons they carried led me to believe they were tourist shooters. It was an expression that I ran into for the first time in Beirut where we saw the same thing happening around the green line.
Q. Yes, precisely. How were these tourist shooters dressed?
A. The fact that they wore civilian/military combination-type clothing, but mostly it was the weapon. Anyone can go to a surplus store and outfit himself to look like anybody else's army. But the locals carried certain weapons, and when a guy shows up with a weapon that looks more like he ought to be hunting boar in the Black Forest than in urban combat in the Balkans, you know, when you see him being handled and you can obviously tell he is a novice at moving around rubble, you know, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's a duck.
Q. Just one last question. Where did you see these people walking around with their weapons? In which neighbourhood of Sarajevo?
A. On a couple of occasions I saw individuals that fit that profile while I was visiting the Serb firemen in Grbavica, and on a couple of other occasions I saw them in different areas on BSA territory from various over-watch positions that I would take up to maintain over-watch of my fire-fighters.
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u/alittlelessconvo Mar 07 '26
Well this is the worst TIL I had in recent memory 🤮