6 ms·

Wealthy foreigners 'paid for chance to shoot civilians in Sarajevo'

90 points by mhb 1y ago

https://archive.is/i37JU https://archive.is/i37JU

mensetmanusman 1y ago
After the mass graves hoax in Canada, it’s hard to take these stories designed for outrage and ad revenue seriously without more evidence than what is being presented. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-mass-graves-or-genocide-in-residential-schools https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-ma...
- lifestyleguru 1y ago
  Imagine you can shoot at people, no consequences. Travel somewhere, pay a fee, shoot, then come back to your cozy reality. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/09/the-gaza-family-torn-apart-by-idf-snipers-from-chicago-and-munich https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/09/the-gaza-famil...
  - brohee 1y ago
    There seem to be clear admission of war crime, that looks like prime indictment material by the ICC, which could make traveling not so cosy in the future.
    - Loughla 1y ago
      Daniel Raab can never come back to the United States. And to be honest, I say good, he can stay away. Ideology is one thing, but he is enjoying killing civilians, knowing they're civilians. Awful.
- mykowebhn 1y ago
  Do you have another less biased source? From Wikipedia: > The Fraser Institute is a conservative Canadian public policy think tank registered as a charity. This is the first time I am hearing about the mass graves being a hoax.
  - gruez 1y ago
    Not the OP, but >As of April 2025, no bodies have been exhumed from the suspected gravesites, largely due to a lack of community consensus on whether to investigate detected anomalies at the risk of disturbing burials.[9] As of January 2024, at least three official excavations had been performed with no bodies discovered, though at least one excavation only investigated a portion of the reported ground anomalies at that site.[10][11][12] Disputes regarding the conclusiveness of the evidence has helped spawn a movement of denialism about the existence of some or all residential school burial sites.[9][13][14] Indigenous groups and academics have dismissed claims of a "mass grave hoax", saying that claimed discoveries of mass graves were present in a minority of stories published by mainstream media and that there had been public misinterpretation of what had actually been announced in 2021.[15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_gravesites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc... It sounds like the "mass" part of the "mass graves" is disputed, and there's motte-and-bailey on both sides (eg. "you must think nobody/bazillion died in residential schools") muddying the dispute.
  - Steven420 1y ago
    Only four supposed mass graves have been investigated and all four found no bodies. There is no credible evidence that says there are mass graves
    - pcthrowaway 1y ago
      It wasn't exactly a "hoax" though, more like sensationalized reporting. Like "so-and-so identified a site where we believe there could be bodies buried" turned into "mass grave uncovered" Some potential burial sites were investigated, no bodies were found. Unmarked graves in association with residential schools certainly have been found in Canada, and since proving a negative in regards to these claims is untenable, the media is generally reluctant to say "see, there were no mass graves after all"
      - Steven420 1y ago
        Where have unmarked residential school graves been found? Also investigating other supposed grave sites have been disallowed by their respective tribes
- evanjrowley 1y ago
  If you seek it out, you will video footage of pogroms from that conflict. Not the exact circumstances as described in the article, but killings were very real.
- ignoramous 1y ago
  > fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-ma... You've a gripe with outrage and yet... I mean, any think tank can write anything they think and post it to the interwebs. Here's the other side's perspective: Since the confirmation of community knowledge of suspected unmarked graves in Kamloops, First Nations across Canada have located evidence of the remains of more than 2,300 children in suspected unmarked graves at or near former residential schools and Indian hospitals, according to the report. But the unauthorized visits to the site are the work of a "core group" of Canadians who continue to deny, defend or minimize the physical, sexual, psychological and emotional abuse inflicted on Indigenous children in the Indian Residential School System "despite the indisputable evidence of survivors and their families," Murray said at a Friday news conference. Denialism and disrespect exacerbate the pain and trauma of survivors and community members trying to grieve and search the grave sites. "Denialism is violence. Denialism is calculated. Denialism is harmful. Denialism is hate," Murray said. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/denialists-tried-to-access-unmarked-gravesite-tkemlups-report-1.6879980 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/denialists-t...
  - smithoc 1y ago
    So there is no actual evidence, and you're committing a hate crime if you ask to see evidence or point out that there's no evidence. If a white person has a drunk uncle or crazy aunt tell a wild conspiracy theory at a family gathering, people dismiss them as a kook. But if an indigenous person does the same thing, it's supposed to be treated as sacred cultural knowledge being passed down? I have an uncle who swears there are thousands of people who've been killed by Bill and Hillary Clinton. He has lists and websites and links to obituaries about deaths "deemed suicides" or "not investigated" or "unsolved". I don't think that my skepticism about his claims is violence or hate.
    - ignoramous 1y ago
      > I don't think that my skepticism about his claims is violence or hate. You realise the investigations are on-going after the initial community-led assessments done with remote sensing tech like GPRs (ground penetrating radars)? This is where this denialism takes an ugly turn. > If a white person has a drunk uncle or crazy aunt tell a wild conspiracy theory at a family gathering, people dismiss them as a kook. I mean, new Holocaust mass graves are still being discovered as institutions keep their investigations up using GPRs! You deny those graves, too? Sure Holocaust denialism is filled with "kooks" unto itself, but surely, we're not those kooks? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327194663_Holocaust_Archaeology_Using_Ground_Penetrating_Radar_to_Locate_a_Jewish_Mass_Grave_in_Kaunas_Lithuania https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327194663_Holocaust...
- jalapenof 1y ago
  [dead]
jvdvegt 1y ago
https://archive.is/i37JU https://archive.is/i37JU
cm2012 1y ago
There were many war crimes in Sarajevo, but this one is probably fake. The only evidence for this is some shady testimonies, and it was not backed up in post war testimony of soldiers, flight logs, etc., even though many other war crimes were.
- ls612 1y ago
  An extortion/blackmail racket then?
- hansmayer 1y ago
  Maybe get yourself acquainted with a topic before you throw up something like this. For reference here is a video of renowned russian poet Eduard Limonow, shooting at Sarajevo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkjPZvz27mg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkjPZvz27mg . I guess this video and the "little" fact that the Italian state prosecutor would not just open an investigation based on some hear/say should make it a bit more believable, shouldn't it?
  - brohee 1y ago
    Limonov was here for ideological reasons. All sides had foreigners in their ranks of various motivations, from the mercenary and the adventurer to the strongly ideologically motivated. What is missing is evidence of people coming there for pure entertainment and paying for the privilege...
    - hansmayer 1y ago
      Well, that's why the Italians are conducting the investigation, isn't it? No-one claimed it was proved.
  - yread 1y ago
    Interesting video. "Poet" shooting at a city with another "poet" Karadzic. Curious that they speak English, wasn't Russian taught at schools in Yugoslavia? And Karadzic's command post being a cable car.
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45893535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45893535
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
sys32768 1y ago
And the evidence is...a claim by an Italian writer who heard it from a former Bosnian intel officer who heard it from... But this does remind me of that excellent docu-series The Line about members of a Navy SEAL platoon who accused their chief of war crimes. https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-line/umc.cmc.4u53f7zokr7g40tjj4gs61xbu https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-line/umc.cmc.4u53f7zokr7g40...
- causal 1y ago
  Wouldn't be the first time an Italian prosecutor went on a witch hunt based on wild conspiracy theories: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/monster-of-florence-amanda-knox-prosecutors-satanic-theories-rejected-by-judge/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/monster-of-florence-amanda-knox...
- hansmayer 1y ago
  I mean serb snipers were already shooting the civilians en masse in Sarajevo. Its not a huge leap from that to lending the opportunity to a few depraved rich idiots. The Epstein files absolutely show you how depraved some rich folks are...
  - nilamo 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - hansmayer 1y ago
      Well yeah, I am sure he hanged himself (or was hanged, depending on what really is the truth) because all those folks were visiting his island for drinks and laughs, we'll just disregard the testimonies of the abused girls, shall we?
      - nilamo 1y ago
        I was only talking about the files that congress refuses to release. Everything you mentioned is unrelated to the files I was replying to, and nothing in what I said suggests that "nothing happened".
josefritzishere 1y ago
Richard Connell wrote the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" on this topic. That was 100 years ago and now it's real.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mellosouls 1y ago
Plenty of non paywall links covering this story, eg: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3epygq5272o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3epygq5272o Italy investigates claims of tourists paying to shoot civilians in Bosnia in 1990s
egorfine 1y ago
I have personally known an individual here in Ukraine who wanted to go for a human safari in Eastern Ukraine in the heyday of the previous war with russia, closer to 2014. All it takes is a mix of morbid curiosity, a bit of boredom, lots of money and a prominent antisocial personality disorder.
- Zealotux 1y ago
  And psychopathy.
  - egorfine 1y ago
    Psychopathy is the previous term for antisocial personality disorder.
f1shy 1y ago
I absolutely understand the interest and engagement of the HN community. But how is this news for a hacker? I think this is mainly a political topic, with no relation to science or technology. Or did I miss something? I flagged it. The discussion is interesting, but I do bot enjoy it in HN. Or at the very least is certainly not what I come to HN for.
- JohnMakin 1y ago
  The world does not exist and cater to your whims and likes/dislikes
  - f1shy 1y ago
    That does not answer the question: how is that relevant in this forum? I do not want the world to exist to any whim. I just made a remark, with a personal opinion. Sorry to see, such is not welcome here, but mere political news which have absolutely nothing to do with hackers, computers, technology or science are very well received. And BTW, I was bot so wrong, it got flagged. So there is that for your whim.
    - hansmayer 1y ago
      If there is a suspicion of such a high crime, that SHOULD BE relevant in any forum. It is not simply a matter of being or not being interested in the latest LLM fads or sqlite optimisations or whatever. It is what is called a universally relevant topic. You know, rich people hunting down a besieged population?
- raffael_de 1y ago
  I second your point 100%. It's interesting news but shouldn't be here. It's eroding what makes this outlet interesting by diluting its essence.
- hansmayer 1y ago
  HackerNews : "News that matter". Not "news for autistic nerds".
notmyjob 1y ago
This reminds me of that old-web website that sold human meat. Human depravity no’s no bounds.
generalpf 1y ago
Mac and Dennis: Manhunters (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia S04E01)

90 points by mhb 1y ago

https://archive.is/i37JU https://archive.is/i37JU

After the mass graves hoax in Canada, it’s hard to take these stories designed for outrage and ad revenue seriously without more evidence than what is being presented. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-mass-graves-or-genocide-in-residential-schools https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-ma...

lifestyleguru 1y ago
Imagine you can shoot at people, no consequences. Travel somewhere, pay a fee, shoot, then come back to your cozy reality. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/09/the-gaza-family-torn-apart-by-idf-snipers-from-chicago-and-munich https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/09/the-gaza-famil...
- brohee 1y ago
  There seem to be clear admission of war crime, that looks like prime indictment material by the ICC, which could make traveling not so cosy in the future.
  - Loughla 1y ago
    Daniel Raab can never come back to the United States. And to be honest, I say good, he can stay away. Ideology is one thing, but he is enjoying killing civilians, knowing they're civilians. Awful.
mykowebhn 1y ago
Do you have another less biased source? From Wikipedia: > The Fraser Institute is a conservative Canadian public policy think tank registered as a charity. This is the first time I am hearing about the mass graves being a hoax.
- gruez 1y ago
  Not the OP, but >As of April 2025, no bodies have been exhumed from the suspected gravesites, largely due to a lack of community consensus on whether to investigate detected anomalies at the risk of disturbing burials.[9] As of January 2024, at least three official excavations had been performed with no bodies discovered, though at least one excavation only investigated a portion of the reported ground anomalies at that site.[10][11][12] Disputes regarding the conclusiveness of the evidence has helped spawn a movement of denialism about the existence of some or all residential school burial sites.[9][13][14] Indigenous groups and academics have dismissed claims of a "mass grave hoax", saying that claimed discoveries of mass graves were present in a minority of stories published by mainstream media and that there had been public misinterpretation of what had actually been announced in 2021.[15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_gravesites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc... It sounds like the "mass" part of the "mass graves" is disputed, and there's motte-and-bailey on both sides (eg. "you must think nobody/bazillion died in residential schools") muddying the dispute.
- Steven420 1y ago
  Only four supposed mass graves have been investigated and all four found no bodies. There is no credible evidence that says there are mass graves
  - pcthrowaway 1y ago
    It wasn't exactly a "hoax" though, more like sensationalized reporting. Like "so-and-so identified a site where we believe there could be bodies buried" turned into "mass grave uncovered" Some potential burial sites were investigated, no bodies were found. Unmarked graves in association with residential schools certainly have been found in Canada, and since proving a negative in regards to these claims is untenable, the media is generally reluctant to say "see, there were no mass graves after all"
    - Steven420 1y ago
      Where have unmarked residential school graves been found? Also investigating other supposed grave sites have been disallowed by their respective tribes
evanjrowley 1y ago
If you seek it out, you will video footage of pogroms from that conflict. Not the exact circumstances as described in the article, but killings were very real.
ignoramous 1y ago
> fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-ma... You've a gripe with outrage and yet... I mean, any think tank can write anything they think and post it to the interwebs. Here's the other side's perspective: Since the confirmation of community knowledge of suspected unmarked graves in Kamloops, First Nations across Canada have located evidence of the remains of more than 2,300 children in suspected unmarked graves at or near former residential schools and Indian hospitals, according to the report. But the unauthorized visits to the site are the work of a "core group" of Canadians who continue to deny, defend or minimize the physical, sexual, psychological and emotional abuse inflicted on Indigenous children in the Indian Residential School System "despite the indisputable evidence of survivors and their families," Murray said at a Friday news conference. Denialism and disrespect exacerbate the pain and trauma of survivors and community members trying to grieve and search the grave sites. "Denialism is violence. Denialism is calculated. Denialism is harmful. Denialism is hate," Murray said. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/denialists-tried-to-access-unmarked-gravesite-tkemlups-report-1.6879980 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/denialists-t...
- smithoc 1y ago
  So there is no actual evidence, and you're committing a hate crime if you ask to see evidence or point out that there's no evidence. If a white person has a drunk uncle or crazy aunt tell a wild conspiracy theory at a family gathering, people dismiss them as a kook. But if an indigenous person does the same thing, it's supposed to be treated as sacred cultural knowledge being passed down? I have an uncle who swears there are thousands of people who've been killed by Bill and Hillary Clinton. He has lists and websites and links to obituaries about deaths "deemed suicides" or "not investigated" or "unsolved". I don't think that my skepticism about his claims is violence or hate.
  - ignoramous 1y ago
    > I don't think that my skepticism about his claims is violence or hate. You realise the investigations are on-going after the initial community-led assessments done with remote sensing tech like GPRs (ground penetrating radars)? This is where this denialism takes an ugly turn. > If a white person has a drunk uncle or crazy aunt tell a wild conspiracy theory at a family gathering, people dismiss them as a kook. I mean, new Holocaust mass graves are still being discovered as institutions keep their investigations up using GPRs! You deny those graves, too? Sure Holocaust denialism is filled with "kooks" unto itself, but surely, we're not those kooks? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327194663_Holocaust_Archaeology_Using_Ground_Penetrating_Radar_to_Locate_a_Jewish_Mass_Grave_in_Kaunas_Lithuania https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327194663_Holocaust...
jalapenof 1y ago
[dead]

jvdvegt 1y ago

https://archive.is/i37JU https://archive.is/i37JU

cm2012 1y ago

There were many war crimes in Sarajevo, but this one is probably fake. The only evidence for this is some shady testimonies, and it was not backed up in post war testimony of soldiers, flight logs, etc., even though many other war crimes were.

ls612 1y ago
An extortion/blackmail racket then?
hansmayer 1y ago
Maybe get yourself acquainted with a topic before you throw up something like this. For reference here is a video of renowned russian poet Eduard Limonow, shooting at Sarajevo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkjPZvz27mg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkjPZvz27mg . I guess this video and the "little" fact that the Italian state prosecutor would not just open an investigation based on some hear/say should make it a bit more believable, shouldn't it?
- brohee 1y ago
  Limonov was here for ideological reasons. All sides had foreigners in their ranks of various motivations, from the mercenary and the adventurer to the strongly ideologically motivated. What is missing is evidence of people coming there for pure entertainment and paying for the privilege...
  - hansmayer 1y ago
    Well, that's why the Italians are conducting the investigation, isn't it? No-one claimed it was proved.
- yread 1y ago
  Interesting video. "Poet" shooting at a city with another "poet" Karadzic. Curious that they speak English, wasn't Russian taught at schools in Yugoslavia? And Karadzic's command post being a cable car.

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45893535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45893535

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

sys32768 1y ago

And the evidence is...a claim by an Italian writer who heard it from a former Bosnian intel officer who heard it from... But this does remind me of that excellent docu-series The Line about members of a Navy SEAL platoon who accused their chief of war crimes. https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-line/umc.cmc.4u53f7zokr7g40tjj4gs61xbu https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-line/umc.cmc.4u53f7zokr7g40...

causal 1y ago
Wouldn't be the first time an Italian prosecutor went on a witch hunt based on wild conspiracy theories: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/monster-of-florence-amanda-knox-prosecutors-satanic-theories-rejected-by-judge/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/monster-of-florence-amanda-knox...
hansmayer 1y ago
I mean serb snipers were already shooting the civilians en masse in Sarajevo. Its not a huge leap from that to lending the opportunity to a few depraved rich idiots. The Epstein files absolutely show you how depraved some rich folks are...
- nilamo 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - hansmayer 1y ago
    Well yeah, I am sure he hanged himself (or was hanged, depending on what really is the truth) because all those folks were visiting his island for drinks and laughs, we'll just disregard the testimonies of the abused girls, shall we?
    - nilamo 1y ago
      I was only talking about the files that congress refuses to release. Everything you mentioned is unrelated to the files I was replying to, and nothing in what I said suggests that "nothing happened".

josefritzishere 1y ago

Richard Connell wrote the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" on this topic. That was 100 years ago and now it's real.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

mellosouls 1y ago

Plenty of non paywall links covering this story, eg: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3epygq5272o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3epygq5272o Italy investigates claims of tourists paying to shoot civilians in Bosnia in 1990s

egorfine 1y ago

I have personally known an individual here in Ukraine who wanted to go for a human safari in Eastern Ukraine in the heyday of the previous war with russia, closer to 2014. All it takes is a mix of morbid curiosity, a bit of boredom, lots of money and a prominent antisocial personality disorder.

Zealotux 1y ago
And psychopathy.
- egorfine 1y ago
  Psychopathy is the previous term for antisocial personality disorder.

f1shy 1y ago

I absolutely understand the interest and engagement of the HN community. But how is this news for a hacker? I think this is mainly a political topic, with no relation to science or technology. Or did I miss something? I flagged it. The discussion is interesting, but I do bot enjoy it in HN. Or at the very least is certainly not what I come to HN for.

JohnMakin 1y ago
The world does not exist and cater to your whims and likes/dislikes
- f1shy 1y ago
  That does not answer the question: how is that relevant in this forum? I do not want the world to exist to any whim. I just made a remark, with a personal opinion. Sorry to see, such is not welcome here, but mere political news which have absolutely nothing to do with hackers, computers, technology or science are very well received. And BTW, I was bot so wrong, it got flagged. So there is that for your whim.
  - hansmayer 1y ago
    If there is a suspicion of such a high crime, that SHOULD BE relevant in any forum. It is not simply a matter of being or not being interested in the latest LLM fads or sqlite optimisations or whatever. It is what is called a universally relevant topic. You know, rich people hunting down a besieged population?
raffael_de 1y ago
I second your point 100%. It's interesting news but shouldn't be here. It's eroding what makes this outlet interesting by diluting its essence.
hansmayer 1y ago
HackerNews : "News that matter". Not "news for autistic nerds".

notmyjob 1y ago

This reminds me of that old-web website that sold human meat. Human depravity no’s no bounds.

generalpf 1y ago

Mac and Dennis: Manhunters (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia S04E01)