A male member of a European royal family was among wealthy war tourists who competed to kill the most beautiful women during horrific human safari trips to Sarajevo, according to a new book. The unnamed royal would allegedly arrive by helicopter and wanted to shoot at children, members of the Bosnian-Serb militia who hosted the foreign shooters told author Domagoj Margetic.
Details of the Human Safari Claims
In his book Pay and Shoot, Margetic claims to have unearthed a cache of documents handed to him by Bosnian intelligence officer Nedzad Ugljen, who investigated the so-called Sarajevo Safari before he was shot dead in 1996. The grim details add to allegations that rich Europeans paid large sums to join Serbian snipers shooting at residents trapped in the Bosnian city between 1992 and 1996.
Allegations that gun enthusiasts and far-right extremists traveled to the war-torn city with sniper rifles to kill terrified Bosnians for fun during the bloody Bosnian War were investigated by Italian magistrates. The foreigners, from Italy, the US, and Russia among other places, are accused of paying Serbian forces to take part in the shooting spree during the longest siege in modern history.
According to files kept by Ugljen, hunters paid about £35,000 to their Serbian handlers to allow them to kill middle-aged men or women, and paid extra to shoot young women from their vantage point on a rise above the city. Pregnant women came at a premium price, it is claimed.
Author's Investigation
Croatian author Margetic told The Times: Ugljen also wrote the foreigners competed to see who could shoot the most beautiful women. He said he interviewed members of the Bosnian-Serb militia who hosted the foreign snipers, adding: Many of them told me a European royal was among the shooters. He would arrive by helicopter, stay in Vogosca near Sarajevo, and wanted to shoot at children.
Margetic claims in his book that the idea originated in Croatia and involved Zvonko Horvatincic, who had worked for Yugoslav intelligence before the breakup of Yugoslavia and the start of the regional wars in the 1990s. He said: He told me he had arranged animal hunting trips for wealthy foreigners in Croatia before the war. It was an activity handled by the security services because foreigners were involved. When the siege of Sarajevo got under way, rich Italians asked him in the summer of 1992 if they could go there.
Background of the Siege
More than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by constant bombing and sniper fire between 1992 and 1996. The weekend snipers were allegedly allowed to shoot at civilians by Bosnian Serb militias under the command of warlord Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian-Serb leader who in 2016 was sentenced to 40 years for genocide.
Croat and Serb forces frequently fought at the time, but intelligence officials on both sides continued to collaborate on getting the snipers to Sarajevo, Margetic said. He added: The smuggling of oil, cigarettes, and coffee was still going on, and officials kept channels open for prisoner exchanges.
Margetic said he was told by former Croatian PM Josip Manolic, who died in 2024, that foreign shooters would sail to the Croatian ports of Zadar and Split and be escorted to the Serbian-run town of Knin and handed over to Serbians for the journey to Sarajevo.
