Italy lacks evidence for now to seek trial in Sarajevo sniper probe, source says

MILAN, June 18 - Italian prosecutors investigating accusations of "sniper tourism" in 1990s Sarajevo do not currently have enough evidence to seek a trial for any suspects, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.

Milan prosecutors have placed five people under investigation over allegations that Italians and other foreigners paid to shoot at civilians during the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, the source said.

The investigation began last year after journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni filed a legal complaint over claims that wealthy foreigners travelled to Bosnia to take part in shooting excursions during the war in the former Yugoslav republic.

The source said the five suspects included a Milan aristocrat who, according to testimony gathered by Gavazzeni, allegedly boasted at a dinner with former schoolmates that he had gone to Sarajevo to shoot people.

The source said prosecutors currently had only circumstantial elements and no firm proof. "Very frankly, at this moment the prosecutors could never ask for any of the suspects to be sent to trial," the source said.

Milan prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis, who is leading the investigation, and chief prosecutor Marcello Viola have a meeting at EU judicial cooperation body Eurojust in Luxembourg on June 29 with Belgian and Bosnian prosecutors to discuss the case, the source said.

"The hope is that the meeting with foreign colleagues and further investigations will bring additional elements," the source said.

In recent days, Carabinieri police searched the home of one of the suspects, a 66-year-old former municipal employee from Genoa who now lives in the province of Alessandria, in northwestern Italy, the source said.

The man had already been questioned in recent months and had exercised his right not to answer, the source said.

The search was ordered after the man's former partner testified that he had nightmares about what he had allegedly done 30 years ago, the source said. Police seized a silencer and a photograph of a precision rifle, the source added.

The source said a separate line of inquiry into an alleged hidden network in Milan that supposedly organised the 1990s shooting trips had so far produced nothing.

About 11,000 civilians were killed by shelling and sniper fire from Bosnian Serb army positions on hills around Sarajevo during the 1992-95 war that followed Bosnia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia.

The Italian investigation was opened after Gavazzeni's complaint over allegations that Italians and other foreigners paid members of Bosnian Serb forces to let them take part in shooting excursions, sometimes referred to as "sniper tourism". REUTERS