On May 03, 1992, members of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), the police, and Serbian paramilitary formations took control of Doboj. A curfew was imposed on Bosniaks and Croats. Their movement was restricted. Abuse, murder, rape, and other types of crimes and inhumane acts became a pattern of behavior against non-Serbs by members of various paramilitary groups. The Red Berets, the White Eagles, and Milan Martić’s police unit, which arrived in Doboj from Croatia in mid-May, were some of the paramilitary formations that ruled the city at that time. Also active were soldiers of the Doboj Volunteer Detachment led by Predrag Kujundžić, members of the Special Detachment of the Center for Security Services (CSB) led by Zdravko Samardžija and Ljuban Ećim, and a group of former soldiers under the command of Nikola Jorgić, known as Jorga.

The case against the wartime Minister of Police of the Republika Srpska, Mićo Stanišić, and the former head of the Security Services Center in Banja Luka, Stojan Župljanin, alleges that over a thousand non-Serb civilians were imprisoned and released from the Central Prison in Doboj from May 02 to December 11, 1992. The civilians were initially brought to the Security Services Center Doboj.They were beaten by members of the Red Berets. Sometimes they forced other Serbs who were in the CSB to join them in the beatings. After that, the inmates were taken to the Central Prison. The non-Serbs who were brought to the prison were without any documents and in civilian clothes. There they were subjected to mistreatment. Paramilitaries raided at night. They beat the detainees. The administration could neither prevent the raids by soldiers nor take any action for the purpose of punishment.

In addition to the CSB and the Central Prison, Serbian authorities established several detention centers in the Doboj area. According to the publication „Camps and other places of detention during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-1996, Part One“ published by TPOS/CDTJ, some of the places of detention were: the warehouses of the Military Economy „Third May“ in the settlement of Bare, the compound of the „Energoinvest“ factory in the village of Kožuhe, military hangars in Usora, the High School Center, the courtyard of the Cultural Center and the Elementary School in Kostajnica, private houses in the village of Grapska, the Elementary School in the village of Rosulje, the hangar of the mountain lodge on Ozren, the Stanari Coal Mine, an abandoned house on Putnikovo Brdo, the Youth Center in the village of Donji Pridjel, the Handball Stadium, the JNA barracks in the village of Ševarlije, the Agricultural Cooperative in the village of Majevac, the labor camp in Kotorsko, a shed in the village of Tumare, the General Hospital, the JNA barracks „Fourth July“ in Miljkovac.

The situation to which the non-Serb population was exposed in Doboj, based on the case against the former President of the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska, Momčilo Krajišnik, led to their rapid departure from that city.

Trials for war crimes committed in the Doboj area during the 1990s have been conducted, and some are still ongoing, before several domestic and foreign courts. A German court sentenced Nikola Jorgić to life imprisonment in 1997 for genocide, murder and kidnapping in the Doboj area. He died in 2014. The Hague tribunal found former heads of the Serbian State Security Service (SDB) Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović guilty of inhumane acts, forcible transfer and persecution as crimes against humanity committed in connection with the siege of Bijeljina, Doboj and Sanski Most. In 2020, the Higher Court in Belgrade sentenced paramilitary member Nebojša Stojanović to eight years in prison for thecrime of war crimes against prisoners of war.

The Association for Social Research and Communication (UDIK) has documented cases from the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the District Court in Doboj, and the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska in two publications. The first publication presents the cases of the State Court that sentenced Miodrag Marković, Predrag Kujundžić, and Slobodan Karagić from six to seventeen years in prison. In 2018, Đorđe Simić was acquitted of charges of crimes against humanity committed in the village of Ševarlije.

Since April 2016, the State Court has been investigating Borislav Paravac, Andrija Bjelošević and Milan Savić for their participation in a joint criminal enterprise and persecution of Bosniak and Croat civilians from the Doboj and Teslić areas. In the first-instance verdict in 2024, which was later confirmed by the appeals chamber, Paravac, Bjelošević and Savić were acquitted of charges of involvement in murders, unlawful detentions, the forcible resettlement of the Bosniak and Croat population, attacks on civilians and settlements, forcible disappearances, physical abuse, torture, pillage and the destruction of religious facilities.

The second publication brings the verdicts of the District Court in Doboj, which handled several cases, which were later tried in second instance before the Supreme Court of Republika Srpska. Seven trials were completed before the court in Doboj, with three acquittals and four convictions. Branko Milanović, Marko Poletan and Vojin Lukić, former members of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), were acquitted of charges for war crimes in Doboj. Branislav Ninković, Milovan Peulić, Miladin Stević, Staniša Miljanović and Vojislav Brestovac were sentenced to prison terms of one to eight years. This publication also brings the list of 219 exhumed identified persons from the Doboj area, as well as the list of 137 persons who are still being sought and who went missing in the Doboj area. These are official data from the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Like all other UDIK’s publications from the series „War Crimes – Transcripts of Court Verdicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina“, these two publications aim to document judicially established facts about war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 1992 to 1995. Because only through judicial facts and relevant information can we achieve a true dealing with the past, which is the foundation for building a better future in our country. We remember all the war victims of the Doboj region.