BELGRADE, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Serbia&${esc.hash}39;s Appeals Court quashed a war crimes conviction against a Bosnian official on Monday in a move that could ease ties between the two former Yugoslav states that have never fully recovered from the 1992-95 war.
A court spokeswoman said the judges had ordered a retrial in the case of Ilija Jurisic, a Bosnian Croat who was jailed for 12 years for alleged crimes against the Yugoslav army in Bosnia.
Official relations between the two neighbours worsened in 2007 after Serbia arrested Jurisic, from the northern town of Tuzla, on charges that he ordered an attack on a column of the Yugoslav Peoples&${esc.hash}39; Army (JNA) that killed at least 50 soldiers.
Belgrade backed separatist Bosnian Serbs during the war, in which more than 100,000 people from all ethnic groups died.
In May, the Muslim chairman of Bosnia&${esc.hash}39;s tripartite presidency postponed a visit to Belgrade after he was denied permission to visit Jurisic.
Jurisic will now be released from jail and allowed to go home to Bosnia pending a fresh trial, court spokeswoman Mirjana Prljic said.
"A retrial was ordered due to incomplete and inaccurate evidence," she said.
Both Bosnia and Serbia aspire to join European Union, and building good neighbourly relations is, among other things, a condition for progress towards membership in the wealthy bloc. (Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Paul Taylor)
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