A UN war crimes tribunal on Thursday cleared former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo.

Five of his co-accused former high-ranking Serb officials : Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic, Nebojsa Pavkovic, Vladimir Lazarevic and Sreten Lukic — were found guilty on all or some of the same charges and were sentenced to between 15 and 22 years in jail by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in the court’s first ruling on the conflict.

The six high-ranking Serbs went on trial in July 2006 charged with the forcible deportation of about 800,000 civilians and the murder of hundreds of Kosovo Albanians by Serb forces, following the violent break-up of the Balkans in the 1990s.

The judgment was the first by The Hague, Netherlands-based tribunal for crimes by the former Yugoslav and Serbian forces during a military campaign against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians in 1999.

Their crimes took place during a Serb-led military campaign against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian population during the first six months of 1999 before a NATO bombing campaign forced a halt to the operation.

Mr Milutinovic was seen largely as a figurehead president during that time. The court found that the 66-year-old, who led Serbia from December 1997 to December 2002, had no direct control over the Yugoslav army and his release from custody was ordered.

Judge Iain Bonomy said it was Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, who was the most powerful commander of Serb troops and military police, who carried out a campaign of murder, rape and deportations in Kosovo.

Judge Bonomy said: “In practice, it was Milosevic, sometimes termed the ‘Supreme Commander’, who exercised actual command authority over the [Serb army] during the Nato campaign.”

Milosevic eventually surrendered to Serbian authorities in 2001 and had been extradited to The Hague, where he was on trial between 2002 and 2006 for the alleged offences in Kosovo and for alleged crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He died from natural causes in March 2006 before the trial ended and before a judgment was made.

Reacting to news of the five men’s convictions, Kosovo’s President, Fatmir Sejdiu, told the AFP news agency he had “full trust” in the UN tribunal. Prosecution spokeswoman Olga Kavran told the Associated Press news agency that prosecutors welcomed the judgment, saying it proved Serbian forces had engaged in a brutal campaign to drive Albanians out of Kosovo.

Kosovo’s government declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008 after being administered by the United Nations since 1999. The U.S., Britain and France have recognized Kosovo’s independence, but China and Russia joined Serbia in opposing the move.