Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has firmly rejected allegations connecting him to the so-called “sniper tourism” during the siege of Sarajevo, describing the claims as “lies”, according to reporting by the BBC.
The accusations emerged after an Italian prosecutor received a complaint from a Croatian journalist who claimed that footage from the 1990s, combined with testimonies from Bosnian officials, show that Vučić had been a “war volunteer” positioned alongside Bosnian Serb forces that besieged Sarajevo for nearly four years.
Speaking at a business conference in Belgrade, Vučić insisted he never killed or injured anyone, stating: “I have never in my life held a sniper rifle.” He argued that photographs allegedly showing him with such a weapon actually depict him holding a camera tripod.
Vučić counter-attacked, accusing the Croatian journalist of attempting to portray him as a “monster, non-human, and cold-blooded killer”—a narrative that critics say fits a broader pattern in which the Serbian president portrays himself as a victim while avoiding accountability for Serbia’s wartime past.
Over 11,000 people were killed during the siege of Sarajevo—one of the most brutal chapters of the Yugoslav wars—where civilians were routinely targeted by sniper fire and shelling from Serb positions surrounding the city.
Italian prosecutors recently opened an investigation into claims that wealthy foreigners allegedly paid to shoot at civilians during the siege. The probe follows the release of the Slovenian documentary “Sarajevo Safari” (2022), which presents disturbing allegations of foreign participants in “sniper tourism.”
Similar accusations have surfaced repeatedly over the years. However, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague says the institution has no evidence supporting these claims. Bosnia’s war-crimes prosecutors also received a complaint in 2022 but have not filed any indictments to date. Former British special forces members deployed to Sarajevo have dismissed the allegations as an “urban myth.”
Despite Vučić’s denial, critics argue that the renewed allegations shine a spotlight on long-standing controversies surrounding Serbia’s leadership, its unresolved wartime legacy, and the president’s persistent attempts to reshape his image while consolidating power domestically.
