Milan Investigation: 230 Italian citizens may have killed Bosnian civilians for sport

Mohammad Alkhateeb

A story which could only be sourced from a literary work of horror, an atrocity which one could scarcely imagine, let alone believe. Between 1991-1996, during the prolonged and painstaking breakup of Yugoslavia[1], the chapter of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s journey to independence is perhaps the most tragic and horrifying. A massacre in the town of Srebrenica which the United Nations did little to prevent, and a four year siege of Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo which the world had watched in horror.

Background

Bosnia had declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, whereas the Serbian people living in Bosnia wished, in large part, to remain part of Yugoslavia. The leadership of Bosnia’s Serbs had set out on a war for Bosnia, which turned into a genocide against a mostly unarmed Bosnian population of predominantly Muslim conviction.

The Serb fighters had surrounded Sarajevo, laying siege to the capital from 1992-1996. Sarajevo’s geography, a valley surrounded by hills on all sides, gave the Serbs an unmatched vantage point, as they maintained control of the hills. Inhabitants of Sarajevo were cut off from essentials of life, including food, water and medicine.

Throughout the siege, the Serb fighters had set up sniper positions on those hills, firing at pedestrians and members of the public in Sarajevo, particularly on the main boulevard into Sarajevo, known colloquially as ‘Sniper Alley’. This came in addition to the shelling of the city for nearly four years. The war on Bosnia entailed the killing of an estimated 200,000 people.

Unfamiliar Faces in Sarajevo

It is commonly discussed today in the former Yugoslav Republics that a particular category of tourists roamed the hills of Sarajevo throughout the siege, a fact which was brought to light by a Slovenian Documentary in 2022 ‘Sarajevo Safari’. Reports of foreigners paying to take part in the killing in Sarajevo had first emerged in Italian and Bosnian newspapers in 1995, yet the story fell into silence.

During the Siege of Sarajevo, it is alleged[2] that wealthy tourists from Europe and Russia paid up to $100,000 each, to travel to the Sarajevan hills and hunt their fellow human beings, shooting at civilians from sniper positions above the city. The tourists in question presumably had no affiliation in this conflict, no ideological commitment. They had set out on this journey to shoot at people for the mere sake of killing, possibly for entertainment, enjoyment, thrill, with no political or moral motivation.

A new investigation

In November 2025, an investigation had been launched by the Milan Prosecution. The investigation is aimed at Italian citizens who had allegedly travelled to Bosnia for the events in question. Journalist Ezio Gavazzeni spoke of a ‘manhunt by very wealthy people with a passion for weapons, who paid to be able to kill defenceless civilians’. It is alleged that around 230 Italian citizens had taken part in the massacres.

Insufficient evidence has been gathered to date for court proceedings to begin and for the individuals in question to be prosecuted. Prosecutors in Italy have identified a list of five suspects, the identities of which are not yet available to the public. This is the law in Italy, where all evidence relating to the investigation is under secrecy until the suspect is informed of it, and normally until the end of preliminary investigations[3]. Investigations are being conducted in parallel in Austria and Belgium.

An 80 year old Italian male from the region of Veneto has been identified by Italian authorities, though his identity remains secret, as one of the suspects under investigation. He is suspected of possible aggravated murder.[4] Another suspect is a 66 year old man from Genoa who lives in Alessandria.

The Law

Conventional wisdom would dictate that such killings entail a prosecution for murder, [5] but seldom have such cases emerged, to serve as guidance. Given the context of the killings, the suspects may be accused of international crimes such as war crimes,[6] because they would be accused of committing murder against defenceless civilians during war, or crimes against humanity[7], because they are likely to be accused of committing murders against civilians, in the context of widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population of Sarajevo, as well as the wider Bosnian population.

Although the suspects are likely to have furthered the unfolding of a genocide, the intention of the alleged criminals is unlikely to be sufficient to satisfy the definition of genocide: ‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part…’ There is no doubt that the conflict in Bosnia had amounted to a Genocide. The question remains, whether the deadly tourists could also be accused of genocide.

For a person to be accused of any domestic or international crime, in most cases the prosecution must prove that the person committed the criminal act, and that they had the necessary state of mind (intention, recklessness…) to commit the criminal act. If the actions are as described in reports and allegations, it is evident that the lethal tourists had killed members of a group (residents of Sarajevo, particularly Bosnian Muslims). They caused serious bodily and mental harm to members of this group by inflicting serious, often lethal injuries to the residents of Sarajevo and causing mental harm by rendering people’s lives unliveable and causing grief and anguish to their families and communities.

The question of intention is more complex in this case. On the one hand, the suspected tourists have no idelogical commitment and cared very little for the identities of the persons they had targeted and gunned down. They did not have an identifiable intention to destroy a group of people. Instead, they had a mere intention to kill, in the general sense, regardless of the people’s identities. This would be sufficient to prove the crime of murder, but it does not prove that they are guilty of genocide.

However, one could argue that they had the knowledge of the people’s identities through the nature of the conflict. By taking part in the killing, by knowingly and willingly shooting at people whose ethnic, racial and national identities they are aware of, by furthering the committing of a genocide, it would not be unreasonable to accuse those individuals of genocide. As such, they knew that those people were targeted because they were Bosnian Muslims, they were a member of that group, and they participated willingly in this process.

It follows the same logic as the Serb fighters themselves. The court, or the investigators and prosecutors, sometimes cannot determine the extent of a person’s intention beyond the implication of their actions, in the absence of words clearly expressing intention. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) did not know the extent of an individual Serb fighter’s ideological commitment, instead their intention to commit genocide was demonstrated through their conduct. The Genocide Convention dictates that private individuals can be accused of Genocide just as any public official or commander who ordered the acts amounting to Genocide.

Final Thoughts

For many in Bosnia and in the wider former Yugoslavia, these allegations are treated as a reality, yet it remains unclear whether this case will ever see a courtroom, and whether the alleged perpetrators of these heinous acts will ever be brought to justice. The delay in the initiation of any investigations is likely due to the surreal nature of these events, which had long been treated as fiction or exaggerations.

The 2022 documentary, as well as writings by Ezio Gavazzeni, have brought more substance to what had previously been a set of abstract, implausible claims. It is unclear which charges will be brought by the prosecutors in Milan or elsewhere in Europe, but they are likely to amount to charges of murder (or aggravated murder), war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

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[1] Yugoslavia (Union of the South Slavs) was a country that consisted of Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and the territory currently known as Kosovo.

[2] The term ‘alleged’ stems from the word ‘allegation’. It is used when a person is accused of having committed an act, usually a criminal act, but the accusation has not been proven or confirmed by a court of law.

[3] Preliminary Investigations in Italy are processes during which the public prosecutor and judicial police conduct investigations to find and collate the information and evidence required for a criminal prosecution.

In the UK, this work is undertaken by the police, after which a file is submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, who then make a decision as to whether to charge the suspect (who then becomes the defendant/accused).

[4] Aggravated murder in Italian law is a murder committed with circumstances that render the act more serious. This includes a murder committed within a family, one using torture or cruelty, mafia activity…

[5] Murder in Italy is defined as an unlawful act causing a human being’s death, with the intention to kill.

[6] War crimes are violations of the laws and customs of war. This includes the murder of civilians, taking of hostages, forced displacement and deportations, torture or other inhuman treatment…

[7] Crimes against humanity are illegal acts committed in the context of widespread or systematic attacks against a civilian population.  Those crimes include murder, extermination, deportation or forcible transfer, false imprisonment, torture, rape or other such crimes committed in systematic or widespread attacks on a group of civilians. Unlike war crimes which are only committed during conflict, crimes against humanity can exist in peacetime.