The public prosecutor's office in Milan has opened an investigation into claims that Italian citizens travelled to Bosnia-Herzegovina on "sniper safaris" during the war in the early 1990s, BBC reported.

Italians and others are alleged to have paid large sums to shoot at civilians in the besieged city of Sarajevo.

The Milan complaint was filed by journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni, who describes a "manhunt" by "very wealthy people" with a passion for weapons who "paid to be able to kill defenceless civilians" from Serb positions in the hills around Sarajevo, according to BBC.