May 14, 2007 9:51 AM

PODGORICA, Montenegro-A group of ethnic Albanians, including three U.S. citizens, appeared in court in Montenegro Monday on charges that they were planning terrorist attacks and an armed insurgency in the former Yugoslav republic.

Eighteen people are accused of preparing an uprising with the aim of carving out an autonomous region in eastern Montenegro, home to a sizable ethnic Albanian community.

Gjon Dedvukaj, a 32-year-old ethnic Albanian living in Montenegro, pleaded not guilty, saying he was "a loyal citizen of Montenegro." Other suspects are expected to enter their pleas at later hearings.

Fourteen of the accused were arrested Sept. 10, on the eve of general elections in the tiny Adriatic republic of 620,000 people. Ethnic Albanians account for 7 percent of the population and live mostly in a border area close to neighboring Albania. One person was arrested later, while the case against three others has been opened in absentia.

Dedvukaj has accused police of mistreating him in detention. He said officers severely beat him after uncovering a handgun in his home. He insisted it was a vintage pistol.

Among the suspects in court were three U.S. citizens of ethnic Albanian origin, cousins Kola and Rrok Dedvukaj, and Sokol Ivanaj. All have lived for decades in Michigan but were arrested while purportedly on vacation in their native Montenegro.

The U.S- based part of the group, according to the charges, funded and instructed their ethnic kin in Montenegro to "use explosives and weapons for terrorist acts aimed at controlling ... military posts, police precincts and other important facilities" in the ethnic Albanian-populated part of the country.

An alleged mastermind of the plot, Doda Ljucaj, an ethnic Albanian born in Montenegro but living in the United States with U.S. citizenship, was arrested last year in Austria. His extradition is expected in the coming months.

If convicted, the accused face up to 15 years in jail each.

Montenegro became a sovereign state last year when it ended its alliance with neighboring Serbia, another former Yugoslav republic. Serbia's much larger ethnic Albanian community, living in the southern province of Kosovo, took up arms in 1998 to fight for independence.

Montenegro has had mostly good relations with its ethnic Albanian minority, whose representatives have been included in successive governments in the tiny republic.