PODGORICA, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - A Montenegrin court on Tuesday sentenced 12 ethnic Albanians, four of them US citizens, to prison terms of up to six and a half years for plotting unrest in the Adriatic country.

The group was found guilty of 'having planned activities ... aimed at creating an Albanian zone within Montenegro, violating the Montenegrin constitution,' Judge Ivica Stankovic said.

The 12 were sentenced for 'conspiring against the constitution and planning acts against the security of Montenegro, including attacks on police stations, border posts and bridges.'

The defendants were all originally from the mainly ethnic Albanian populated region of Malesija, east of the capital Podgorica.

Doda Ljucaj, one of the US citizens from the state of Michigan, was jailed for six years and six months, getting the longest sentence.

Djon Ljucovic, a Montenegrin Albanian who remains at large, was sentenced to three years and three months in absentia.

The 10 others received suspended sentences of up to five years and had their passports confiscated, the court said.

The lawyer acting for the group, Radomir Prelevic, told AFP that the court's decision was 'in accordance with the law.'

At the same trial, another five defendants under separate charges were sentenced to between three and seven months in prison for the 'illegal possession of arms and explosives.'

The entire group was arrested on September 9, 2006, the day before the first parliamentary elections were held in Montenegro, which proclaimed independence from a union with Serbia a month earlier.