Austria Closes Sniper Tours Investigation in Sarajevo

Austria’s Justice Ministry has approved a proposal by prosecutors in Krems to close the investigation into an Austrian citizen suspected of shooting at civilians from sniper positions during the siege of Sarajevo. The Vienna daily Der Standard reported the news on October 19, and N1 BiH carried it today. For Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider region, this is not a distant Austrian episode: the suspicions rest on claims that foreigners paid to shoot at residents of the encircled city, and according to N1 BiH, the shooting was supposed to have taken place from positions held by the Army of Republika Srpska.

Why was the investigation closed?

The prosecutors in Krems sent the Justice Ministry in Vienna a report on their intended course of action, and the Weisungsrat, an advisory body attached to the ministry, also reviewed the case. According to Der Standard, there was not enough evidence. Witnesses described what they had heard from others, not what they had seen themselves.

The same report gave two further reasons:

• the profile of the possible perpetrator did not match the man under investigation,
• according to the findings of the investigation, he did not have the money to travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The reasoned decision to close the case has not been made public, so everything above relies on the paper’s reporting, which cites the ministry.

How did the investigation begin?

An investigation had been under way since April 25, 2026, against one Austrian citizen whose identity is known and one other person who was unidentified at the time. The information that led to it came from South Tyrol. Justice Minister Ana Sporer confirmed the proceedings in May, in reply to a parliamentary question from Alma Zadic, a former justice minister and now the Greens’ spokesperson on judicial affairs. Details were withheld because of the needs of the proceedings.

Sources disagree on one point. N1 BiH, citing Der Standard, writes that the investigation was opened after a parliamentary inquiry by Alma Zadic. The Austrian portal Kosmo says Sporer’s May 19 reply, to a question Zadic filed on March 19, does not show that the inquiry triggered the investigation. The same portal adds that in May the ministry stated that Austrian prosecutors had no investigations of their own based on the work of Ezio Gavazzeni concerning the involvement of Austrian citizens.

What about the investigation in Milan?

Prosecutors in Milan have also looked into the claims about foreigners who paid to shoot at civilians in Sarajevo, following a complaint from the Italian author Ezio Gavazzeni. He says he handed Italian investigators documents and witness statements. Last year, according to N1 BiH, he claimed that more than 400 foreigners took part in such activities. Der Standard concludes that he has not backed these claims with evidence, that he based them on rumors, and it criticizes media outlets that reported them as established fact.

In June it was reported that prosecutors in Milan did not, at that stage, have enough evidence to seek a trial for one suspect, only indications.

The Austrian closure applies solely to the case handled in Krems and does not decide the Milan investigation. Nor does it mean that every allegation about the “Sarajevo safari” has finally been resolved. Kosmo also points to a distinction that often gets lost: a claim about paid foreign shooters is not the same thing as documented attacks on civilians during the siege, and the closure concerns only the first.