Former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic was acquitted on Thursday as five former top Serbia officials have been found guilty on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo by a UN war crimes tribunal.

Milutinovic is ordered to release by the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal of crimes committed against ethnic Albanians during the violent break-up of the Balkans in the 1990s.

But the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted five other senior Serbs and gave them prison sentences of between 15 and 22 years in the court's first judgment for Serb crimes in Kosovo.

Milutinovic and five co-accused went on trial on 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," Judge Ian Bonomy said in the court's ruling, and ordered him released from detention.

The three-judge panel convicted five other leaders of involvement in the campaign; former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic, ex-Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff Dragoljub Ojdanic, former army generals Nebojsa Pavkovic and Vladimir Lazarevic and Serbian police Gen. Sreten Lukic.

Sainovic, Pavkovic and Lukic were found guilty of charges of deportation, forcible transfer, murder and persecution and each given 22-year prison sentences.

Ojdanic and Lazarevic were convicted of deportation and forcible transfer of civilians but acquitted of murder and persecution. They each got 15 years.

Agencies