Milan Prosecutors Investigate Supposed "Sniper Tourism," Involving Wealthy Elites Paying Guides to Take Them to the Bosnian War Zones to Kill People With Rifles

This sounds like a sci-fi action movie plot, which makes me skeptical.

Milan prosecutors investigate alleged 'sniper tourism' during Bosnian war

Groups from Italy and elsewhere alleged to have paid Serb soldiers to shoot Sarajevo residents during siege

Prosecutors in Milan have opened an investigation into Italians who allegedly paid members of the Bosnian Serb army for trips to Sarajevo so that they could kill citizens during the four-year siege of the city in the 1990s.

More than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by constant shelling and sniper fire between 1992 and 1996 in what was the longest siege in modern history, after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia.

The snipers were perhaps the most feared element of life under siege in Sarajevo because they would pick off people on the streets, including children, at random, as if it was a video game or a safari.

Groups of Italians and other nationalities, so-called "sniper tourists", are alleged to have participated in the massacre after paying large sums of money to soldiers belonging to the army of Radovan Karadžić, the former Bosnian Serb leader who in 2016 was found guilty of genocide and other crimes against humanity, to be transported to the hills surrounding Sarajevo so that they could shoot at the population for pleasure.

Sarajevo is in a basin surrounded by mountains, which made cutting it off and attacking it particularly easy.

Milan prosecutors, led by Alessandro Gobbi, launched an investigation aimed at identifying the Italians involved on charges of voluntary murder aggravated by cruelty and abject motives.

The investigation originated from a legal complaint submitted by Ezio Gavazzeni, a Milan-based writer who gathered evidence on the allegations, as well as a report sent to the prosecutors by the former mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karić.

...

In the documentary, a former Serb soldier and a contractor claimed that groups of westerners would shoot at the civilian population from the hills around Sarajevo. Its claims have been vehemently denied by Serbian war veterans.

...

Gavazzeni claimed "many, many, many Italians" were alleged to have been involved, without providing a figure. "There were Germans, French, English ... people from all western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians."

He claimed the Italian suspects would meet in the northern city of Trieste and travel to Belgrade, from where the Bosnian Serb soldiers would accompany them to the hills of Sarajevo. "There was a traffic of war tourists who went to there to shoot people," he said. "I call it an indifference towards evil."

This sounds to me like a dark fantasy that this guy wants to be true.

People are comforted by the thought that the world is better than it really is. But other people are just as comforted by the idea that the world is much worse than it really is.

Add into that Italy's very vibrant Communist scene, where there's always a market for stories about greedy capitalist pigs killing the virtuous poor, and... I'm going to want more proof than a "journalist's" research.

And this is an idea that just seems to capture the public's imagination. I've seen most of these Humans Hunting Humans films. One I always see referenced, and want to see some day, is "The Tenth Victim" from 1965 starring Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni.

The 10th Victim (Italian: La decima vittima) is a 1965 science fiction film directed and co-written by Elio Petri, starring Marcello Mastroianni, Ursula Andress, Elsa Martinelli, and Salvo Randone. An international co-production between Italy and France, it is based on Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story "Seventh Victim".

Taking place in the year 2079 in the aftermath of World War III, the film's focus is on a government-endorsed program known as "The Big Hunt", whereby contestants from around the world act as "hunters" and "victims" in two-person battles to the death as a means of avoiding mass warfare. The plot follows veteran Big Hunt contestants Caroline Meredith (Andress) and Marcello Poletti (Mastroianni), who are respectively assigned the roles of hunter and victim for one such confrontation, which is complicated by their budding romance. Like Petri's other films, The 10th Victim is a work of socio-political satire, while also combining science fiction themes with conventions of the commedia all'italiana genre.[6]

I did see the Ozploitation version of this story, in Turkey Shoot. I don't recommend it. Trashy but not trashy fun.

I think the Edgar Wright directed The Running Man remake opens this weekend.

Octopussy had a three-minute human safari sequence, and it was the worst part of the movie.

So it's something that just seems to grip people's minds. But I don't remember hearing about any cases where this actually happened, though.

And, on a practical level: I think someone entering a war zone with a sniper rifle would be fired upon themselves, and I wonder exactly which of the wealthy, pampered, likely old people were willing to risk that.

I'm also a little wary of Italian prosecutors making action/horror movie claims. In read the terrific true-crime book by Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence, the so-called "Jack the Ripper of Italy," operating there in the 80s and 90s.

In my review, I relayed that there are more dangers there than serial killers:

Italy's a lovely place, but take this advice: Never be accused of committing a serious crime there. I'm not saying don't commit a serious crime; chances are, you'd get away with it. I'm saying don't be accused of committing a serious crime, especially if you're innocent, because that's when the Italian justice system seems to go into Berserker Mode to convict you. The clownshow of Italian justice is jaw-slackening stuff.

Add into that the medieval -- if that -- banditry of the Sardinian mountain clans and a local populace absolutely terrified of an audacious murderer that simply cannot be found, and the panics and paranoias that grip the area and DAs and head detectives who rely on the theories of shrieky, conspiratorial bloggers, pushing bizarre theories about aristocrats and doctors in Satanic Cults trading in female sexual organs (because the most psychic energy is contained in sexual organs from people killed at the point of orgasm, you know.... didn't you know that? I thought everyone knew that).

I'm only halfway through and I haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet. (The authors may or may not be threatened to be jailed unless they leave Italy and/or actually thrown in jail for daring to report on this insanity... by the DA pushing the Satanic Sex Cult Genital Trafficking theory of the case.)

I have no information about Milan's prosecutors but having read about Florence's, I'm skeptical.

The prosecutor pushing the "doctors and lawyers are the real serial killers" line got embarrassed that his Interesting Theories were never proven, and was embarrassed more when it turned out some of his sources and accusers were homeless drunks. How they knew the skinny on Italy's aristocrats and their secret Satanic sex parties, I don't know.

He then repackagef his Satanic Sex Orgy theories of murder by... prosecuting Amanda Knox under a similar sort of "satanic sex orgy gone wrong" murder theory.

The actual killer in that case turned out to be an African immigrant and drifter and noted "girl-botherer" -- sex pest -- with a criminal history of breaking into people's homes for petty theft and then taking a poop there. Which is exactly what happened in the Meredith Kercher murder, except she came home while he was burgling the place. His DNA and bloody handprints were found everywhere.

A very likely suspect with a ton of evidence against him... but no razzle-dazzle, you know? No va-va-voom.

The DA was too invested in his "Satanic Sex Orgy" theory so he just claimed that the sex-pest immigrant burglar had, for some reason, been recruited into the orgy murder scenario by Amanda Knox.

So that's why I'm very skeptical. It just doesn't seem very likely to me.

I'll ask Colonel Kurt Schlichter if he remembers any intel about Human Hunts when he was serving over in Kosovo but I imagine he already would have written a couple of thriller books about it if he had.

Unrelated: As some have mentioned in the comments, John Fetterman took a fall today and was hospitalized.

But recent reports say he was brought to the hospital only out of "an abundance of caution" so hopefully Lumpy Jack will ride again.

U.S. Senator John Fetterman @SenFettermanPA

Statement from Sen. Fetterman's Spokesperson:

"During an early morning walk, Senator Fetterman sustained a fall near his home in Braddock.

Out of an abundance of caution, he was transported to a hospital in Pittsburgh.

Upon evaluation, it was established he had a ventricular fibrillation flare-up that led to Senator Fetterman feeling light-headed, falling to the ground and hitting his face with minor injuries.

Senator Fetterman had this to say: 'If you thought my face looked bad before, wait until you see it now!'

That's so Lumpy Jack.

He is doing well and receiving routine observation at the hospital. He has opted to stay so doctors can fine-tune his medication regimen.

Senator Fetterman is grateful for the EMTs, doctors, and nurses who are providing his care."

The "LOVE IS LOVE" brigades continue thirsting for a man's death:

posted by Ace at 06:11 PM

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