Pristina - A court in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica sentenced a Kosovo Albanian to 40 years in prison Friday for a bomb attack on a Serbian bus that left 11 people dead and 22 injured in February 2001.

Florim Ejupi was convicted of planting and detonating the explosives that destroyed the bus near Podujevo in northern Kosovo when it was part of a convoy protected by Swedish UN peacekeepers.

The bus was carrying 57 Serb passengers from the southern Serbian city of Nis to Gracanica in Kosovo.

Kosovo's Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, nine years after NATO bombed Serbia to halt counter- insurgency operations by the Serbian army against Albanian rebels. (dpa)