A Montenegro court on Friday ordered the retrial of several people over an alleged Russian-backed coup attempt in 2016, overturning their convictions after an appeal.

The original 2019 verdict handed five-year prison sentences to two then-opposition politicians from the Democratic Front, a pro-Serb party who is now in the ruling majority.

The politicians, Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic, were accused of being part of a "criminal organisation" plotting to topple then-prime minister Milo Djukanovic and halt his plans to bring Montenegro into NATO.

A former Serbian police general also received eight years behind bars while the heaviest sentences, 12 and 15 years, went to two alleged Russian spies tried in absentia.

After the defendants appealed, Podgorica's appeals court announced in a statement Friday it had "revoked the first-instance verdict", citing "significant violations of the provisions of the criminal procedure".

In the 2016 poll, the Democratic Front was the main rival against Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), leading critics to accuse the country's longtime leader of fabricating the case to boost his political fortunes.

At the time, Moscow rejected the allegations of its involvement as "absurd", while US State Department hailed the sentence as a "victory for the rule of law" against "Russia's brazen attempt to undermine the sovereignty of an independent European nation".

While Djukanovic is now president, his DPS party lost control of parliament in 2020 polls, sending them into the opposition for the first time in decades.

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