Serbian president denies involvement in alleged Bosnia ‘sniper tourism’

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described the claim that he engaged in “sniper tourism” during the siege of Sarajevo as a “lie”.

This followed a complaint submitted to Italian prosecutors by a Croatian journalist, alleging that a video shot in the 1990s and subsequent testimony by Bosnian officials showed Vucic was a “combat volunteer” working with Bosnian-Serb forces in positions overlooking Sarajevo.

Speaking at a UK-Western Balkans business conference in Belgrade, Vucic said he “didn’t kill anyone, injure anyone or anything like that”.

He added that he had “never held a sniper rifle in my life.”

He said pictures purporting to show him with such a weapon actually showed him carrying a “camera tripod.”

He said the Croatian journalist “tried to portray me as a monster, inhumane, not only emotionless but also a cold-blooded killer.”

More than 11,000 people died during the brutal four-year siege of Sarebosna. Yugoslavia was torn apart by war and the city was surrounded by Serbian forces and subjected to constant shelling and sniper fire.

Italian prosecutors launched an investigation Earlier this month, allegations emerged that wealthy foreigners paid to shoot at civilians during the siege of Sarajevo.

This followed a complaint from an Italian writer who watched the 2022 Slovenian documentary film Sarajevo Safari, which was the source of the allegations.

Author Ezio Gavazzeni claims that Italians and others paid large sums of money to participate in “sniper safaris” and shoot at civilians in the besieged city of Sarajevo during the war in the early 1990s.

Claims by Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetic that Vucic volunteered for the Bosnian Serb militia in an area above Sarajevo were also previously strongly denied by Vucic’s spokeswoman Suzana Vasiljevic.

He told the Times newspaper that the allegations were “a textbook case of malicious disinformation designed to erode the institutional credibility of the Republic of Serbia and its president.”

He said that at the time, Vucic was working as a journalist and translator in nearby Pale “without any contact with military structures or operational activities.”

He added: “President Vucic did not participate in combat activities, did not use weapons, and had no role in wartime operations.”

Similar allegations about “man hunters” coming from abroad have been made many times over the years.

But the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals Residual Mechanism in The Hague told the BBC that his organization had no knowledge of the allegations.

Bosnia’s war crimes prosecutor received a complaint in 2022 but did not issue any indictment.

British special forces serving in Sarajevo during the siege told the BBC that the allegations were an “urban legend”.