Dr. Vekoslav Simic, Mayor Andjelko Kolasinac, Stanko Levic, Nenad Matic, Danilo Misic, his brother Radosav Misic, Radomir Jovanovic, Novica Krstic, Arsenije Vitosevic, Dejan Mitic and Mijo Djinovic were arrested.
They were all initially charged with alleged genocide against the Albanians, and later the charges were reduced. Nonetheless, they are still in jail in Prizren.
Until his arrest, the first accused, Dr. Vekoslav Simic, was the only doctor in the improvised clinic in the Serbian part of Orahovac, so now there is nobody to take care of the chronically ill Serbs, children who frequently fall ill, the weak and elderly... He was arrested by the German KFOR troops two and a half months ago in the clinic, when about 200 Orahovac citizens were waiting to be examined. According to eye-witnesses, the KFOR military police handcuffed Dr Simic, pushed him into a van, and drove him to the prison in Prizren. Albanian prosecutors and lawyers found it very hard to prove his involvement in the alleged "genocide" against the Albanians, because the dates of his alleged crimes do not match, so in the end they altered the charges. Now they are accusing him of taking part in the arrest of three Albanians.
Two days after his arrest, Mayor of Orahovac Andjelko Kolasinac and entrepreneur Stanko Levic were also arrested. Initially, Mr. Kolasinac was accused that, as the president of the municipality, he was able to choose which of the villages in the area of Orahovac were to be burnt down. Since the international investigators confirmed that the president of a municipality in Yugoslavia has less authority than in the West and that he only has jurisdiction over municipal services and the supply of provisions to the citizens, the international police altered the indictment. Now they are charging him with not confronting military and police units during the alleged "expulsion of the citizens belonging to the majority population in Orahovac".
The third one, Stanko Levic, is charged with the murder of a Velija Topoli. The indictment, composed and submitted by the Albanians, states that Levic "slaughtered Topoli with a knife, cut off his arms, ears, pulled out his eyes and finally, in the most brutal way, cut his throat." Since Topoli was killed in the attack on the Serbian police, KFOR experts team interrogated the Albanians, exhumed the body and confirmed by expert opinion that Topoli was not slaughtered, but shot from the distance of about 100m at least half a year earlier than the Albanians claimed in the indictment. However, Levic is still imprisoned in Prizren.
Nenad Matic was arrested while, together with his wife and children, trying to leave Orahovac for central Serbia in a convoy organized by UNHCR. While the convoy was passing through the village of Zociste, he was identified by the Albanians, who attacked him, and German KFOR troops finally somehow managed to prevent a lynching. Since the troops believed in the Albanian story, they arrested him.
Recently, in a UNHCR convoy of Serbs from Velika Hoca heading for Vranje, on the road between Orahovac and Suva Reka, the Albanians, who allegedly help the international investigators, pointed their finger at Danilo and Radosav Misic, Cedomir Jovanovic and Novica Krstic, claiming that they were "butchers of Albanians". German troops immediately pulled them out of the convoy and arrested them, although the day before they had been at a hearing with the international investigators. There, they were told they were free to go and that they were not on the list of war crimes suspects. According to Albanian statements, Danilo Misic is charged with several murders and for allegedly being a member of Arkan's troops. As a proof, the Albanians cite the fact that his documents were issued in Belgrade, where he had spent a decade before returning to his native town a few years ago. Dejan Mitic was arrested, as he was told, because he violated the Resolution 1244 and the Kumanovo agreement, since, as a professional policeman, he failed to retreat from Kosovo with the rest of the Yugoslav Army and Police units in due time.
Ljubisa Meritosevic from Velika Hoca was arrested in Orahovac in front of a clinic where he tried to take his sick wife to a medical exam. After he was attacked by four members of the so-called KLA at the entrance, and thrown to the ground Meritosevic pulled out his gun in self-defense and wounded three of them. According to the statement of his wife, who visited him twice in the pre-trial confinement, the prison guards molested him. They woke him up every hour at night, and forced him to take cold showers. After a month in prison he was brought to trial where none of the Albanian witnesses and victims were present, although they were officially summoned. Summons were postponed, then rescheduled, but the Albanians never appeared. He was acquitted by the court at the third hearing, and since Meritosevic refused to return to his native village alone, the court provided police escort to the village of Velika Hoca, where he still resides with his family.