The former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic has been acquitted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague of crimes committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in the late 1990s. Five other Serbs were found guilty and given sentences ranging from 15 to 22 years.
Milutinovic, 66, was seen as a figurehead president during the Kosovo conflict with the real power lying in the hands of his mentor, Slobodan Milosevic, the then-president of the rump Yugoslavia.
Milosevic, the architect of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, died in custody in 2006 before a verdict could be delivered in his own trial, giving this one far greater significance. It is the UN court's first ever ruling on crimes committed by Serb forces in Kosovo.
Five other top Serbian officials were found guilty on some or all of the charges relating to the conflict. They were the ex-Yugoslav deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic; the former Yugoslav army chief of staff and defence minister Dragoljub Ojdanic; the ex-generals Nebojsa Pavkovic and Vladimir Lazarevic; and the former Serbian public security service chief Sreten Lukic.
Milutinovic and his co-accused went on trial in July 2006 charged with the forcible deportation of about 800,000 civilians and the murder of hundreds of civilians by Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999.
"The trial chamber finds you not guilty of counts one to five of the indictment," said Judge Iain Bonomy. He ordered Milutinivoc released from detention. All six defendants had pleaded not guilty.
The Serb crackdown in Kosovo left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands internally displaced or as refugees in neighbouring states. Tthe prosecution said the Serbian orchestrators sought the "modification of the ethnic balance in Kosovo in order to ensure continued Serbian control."
Serb and other Yugoslav troops withdrew from the predominantly ethnic Albanian province in June 1999 following a three-month Nato bombing campaign. Milosevic and the Serb authorities always insisted they were taking legitimate action against the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, which they branded a terrorist group.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, a status since recognised by 55 countries. Serbia still considers Kosovo as one of its provinces and fiercely opposes its independence, though it has had no control over the territory since a UN mission took over at the end of the conflict.