The first murder suspect has emerged in the investigation into the so-called "weekend snipers" in Sarajevo, who allegedly paid to kill - including women, the elderly and children - during the siege of the city by Bosnian Serbs between 1992 and 1995, the ANSA news agency reported today.
According to information obtained as part of the investigation conducted by the Carabinieri Special Operations Group (ROS), under the coordination of Public Prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis at the Milan Prosecutor's Office headed by Marcello Viola, a summons for questioning was served today on the suspect, an 80-year-old former truck driver from the province of Pordenone.
According to the Italian daily Il Giorno, he is a former truck driver who worked for a metal processing company. According to the assumption of the Milan Prosecutor's Office, which summoned him for questioning, he is accused of "in complicity with other currently unknown persons" in the execution of "that criminal plan, causing the death of unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly and children, by shooting with precision rifles from the hills around Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995". The act has been qualified as "murder with base motives", reports N1.
According to the newspaper, he allegedly boasted to others that he had been "hunting people" in Sarajevo during that period, according to testimonies collected during the investigation. Based on the stories recorded during the witness interviews, investigators and prosecutors identified the 80-year-old and decided to add him to the register of suspects for deliberate continuous murder, or multiple episodes, and to summon him for questioning at the Milan Prosecutor's Office on February 9.
The former truck driver was summoned for questioning today and was searched. In his home, ROS Carabinieri investigators found seven legally owned weapons: two pistols, one carbine and four rifles.
The investigation was launched in Milan a few months ago, following a criminal complaint filed by writer and journalist Ecio Gavaceni, with the help of lawyers Nicola Brigido and Guido Salvini.
In the complaint, Gavaceni refers to statements by Edin Subasic, a former agent of the Bosnian security services, according to whom Bosnian services informed their Italian colleagues in early 1994 that "tourist shooters" were leaving from Trieste to participate in these "safaris".
Italian services allegedly then "interrupted" these "horrific safaris," ANSA reports.
Subasic also claimed that there may be documents confirming contacts between Bosnian and Italian agents, including possible identifications of the perpetrators.
The investigation also relies on reports from former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karić, who pointed to at least five people mentioned or described in the 2022 documentary "Sarajevo Safari" by Slovenian director Miran Zupanič.
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