Retired company chief plays golf in Florida and refuses to be judged by Indian court

Warren Anderson, the former chairman of Union Carbide, has never appeared before the criminal court in Bhopal to answer charges of "culpable homicide" in the 10 years that the case has rumbled on. Nor has any American employee of the company.

The Indian authorities have declared Mr Anderson a fugitive and long ago issued a warrant for his arrest. Interpol and others have tried unsuccessfully to serve him with a summons to appear in India but he has proved elusive – apparently it has not been possible to find him, though he is certainly in the US.

India has sought to have Mr Anderson extradited. There is an extradition treaty between India and the US but this attempt to force him to India has made no progress. The Bhopal court yesterday instructed prosecutors to step up efforts to extradite him.

In 1984, within days of the tragedy, Mr Anderson flew to India and declared that he took personal "moral" responsibility, on behalf of Union Carbide, for the disaster. He was detained by the local police in Bhopal, who filed criminal charges against him. In order to get himself released, Mr Anderson signed a piece of paper that committed him to appear before the Indian courts. Then he flew out of India, never to return. Mr Anderson says that he didn't know what he was signing, as the document was in Hindi and it was not translated for him.

The current criminal case in Bhopal began hearing evidence in 1992.

William Krohley, the New York lawyer who accompanied Mr Anderson on that trip to Bhopal in 1984 and continues to represent him, insists that Mr Anderson is not running away from justice.

"We never agreed to submit to the criminal jurisdiction of the Indian courts. The civil case was settled long ago. You can't undo injury. The best that could be done was done," Mr Krohley told The Independent.

Victims of the gas leak at his company's Bhopal plant, and the Indian courts, believe Mr Anderson has been hiding from his moral responsibilities ever since that visit to the site of the disaster. They claim that the top management at Union Carbide closely supervised safety at all its plants, meaning that Mr Anderson would have been aware of breaches of safety and a series of incidents that had occurred at the Bhopal facility long before the fatal gas leak. Furthermore, Mr Anderson is said to have been behind the company-wide cost-cutting drive that led to a reduction in the maintenance regime at the Bhopal plant and vital safety equipment not working, allowing the poisonous gas to leak out.

Mr Anderson retired in 1986 and he has led a comfortable life, with homes in Florida and New York. He has not personally appeared before a New York district court over a recent civil case filed there by Bhopal victims, though his lawyers have defended him.

Union Carbide and Mr Anderson, now in his eighties, do not recognise the right of the Bhopal court to hear criminal charges against them and neither has any intention of appearing before it.

"Warren Anderson is not dodging due process. He's not hiding from anybody. He leads a normal retired life. He has places in Florida and New York where he resides. He plays golf every day, he socialises with people," said Mr Krohley.