Belgrade - A Serbian court on Monday sentenced former Bosnian security officer Ilija Jurisic to 12 years in prison for ordering an attack on a Yugoslav army convoy in 1992 in which at least 50 soldiers were killed.

Jurisic's lawyers called the court's decision "scandalous" and said they plan to appeal to the Serbian Supreme Court, Serbian media reported.

Jurisic, who was a high-ranking official in the Bosnian Interior Ministry during the 1992-95 war, was found guilty of ordering the Muslim-Croat attack against a Serbian army convoy withdrawing from Tuzla in May 1992.

Following Jurisic's orders, snipers first shot the drivers of dozens of army trucks and then fired on some 100 soldiers who were pulling out from the town. At least 51 soldiers were killed and 50 injured in the attack.

Jurisic's trial has strained relations between Bosnia and Serbia. Bosnian officials said the trial was politically motivated, and Jurisic's lawyers said that the Bosnian troops acted in self-defence, as the Yugoslav army fired first during the pullout from Tuzla.

Jurisic was arrested in May 2007 at Belgrade's airport, and his trial began in February last year.

Bosnia was the site of a brutal ethnic conflict that pitted the majority Muslims and Croats against Serbs, who had the support of Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Belgrade.

The war ended in late 1995, after more than three years, through a US-brokered peace deal that effectively divided Bosnia along ethnic lines.(dpa)