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Most wanted (still)

Today, Saddam faces justice at last. But where are the others accused of crimes against humanity?

Wednesday 30 June 2004 19:00 EDT
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Radovan Karadzic, Bosnian Serb president

Radovan Karadzic, Bosnian Serb president

Wanted for: Assault, genocide, grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, murder, plunder and violations of the laws of war

Last sighted: Foca, southern Bosnia, 2002

Bosnian Serbs were yesterday punished for failing to catch the former president of the Serbian Democratic Party, a wanted war criminal. Paddy Ashdown, the West's peace envoy in the region, sacked 60 senior officials, including the Parliament's Speaker, who heads the Serb Democratic Party founded by Karadzic, and the Interior Minister, Zoran Djeric, as well as other ministers, police, mayors and MPs.

On the run since the Dayton accord in 1995, the 59-year-old Karadzic, a psychologist and poet who has a $23m (£12.6m) bounty on his head, is accused of responsibility for the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, particularly in Srebrenica and Sarajevo. He has twice been indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

He is still seen as a hero by hardline nationalists. Bosnia Serb officials say they do not know where he is.

Mullah Omar, Taliban leader

Wanted for: Harbouring terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, multiple human rights abuses, threatening international security

Last sighted: Pakistani border town of Quetta, November 2003

Accused of harbouring terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, the "Commander of the Faithful", has been in hiding ever since his regime fell in 2001.

American troops are still relentlessly searching for him and believe he could be in the mountains in the south-east of the country. Despite having a $10m (£5.5m) bounty on his head, he has frequently taunted the US with taped messages voicing his continued determination to destroy America at whatever cost. He claims that the Taliban has enough ammunition stored away to last its followers "decades".

However, recent reports have suggested his support among his soldiers is diminishing, with one Taliban commander, Mullah Soban, denouncing Mullah Omar's alleged supplying of poisonous biscuits to women working with aid agencies in Khost as "a heinous crime against humanity".

Osama bin Laden, al-Qa'ida leader

Wanted for: Mass murder, international terrorism, organising suicide bombers, and incitement to kill 'Americans and their allies'

Last sighted: Kandahar, Afghanistan, early 2001

Although there has been no authenticated sighting of the terrorist leader for three years, he regularly issues videotapes promoting the al-Qa'ida message of terror and destruction. American forces are unsure as to Bin Laden's whereabouts but believe him to be travelling within a 150-mile diameter near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, an area protected by the Pashtun tribes that dominate the area. US intelligence estimates that he could be in a group numbering as few as 10 men, but they have been unable to track the group down.

As many as 10,000 American troops are engaged in the hunt for Bin Laden, who requires regular kidney dialysis because of his ill-health. Earlier this year, a handwritten letter to his mother was apparently intercepted. "I am in good health and in a very, very safe place," it read. "They will not get me unless Allah wills it."

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Ansar leader

Wanted for: Mass murder, terrorism, incitement to kill, kidnap and decapitations, organising suicide bombings

Last sighted: Close to the Iraq/Jordan border, late 2002

A Jordanian-born Sunni, Zarqawi is thought to have links to al-Qa'ida and is wanted by the United States on suspicion of organising attacks on its troops in Iraq and beheading the American contractor Nicholas Berg. The Americans have put a $10m (£5.5m) bounty on his head.

He is accused of being linked to Iraq's bloodiest bombings, including those last year outside a Shia mosque, at the UN headquarters in Baghdad and the Jordanian embassy. He appears to be leading other aspects of the insurgency through the al-Ansar al-Islam group. The devastating March train bombings in Madrid also appear to be linked to his organisation, Jamaat al-Tawhid wa'l Jihad (Unity and Jihad Group).

Zarqawi was in Afghanistan during the US invasion, where he was injured. He fled to Iran and then to Baghdad, where, it is believed, his leg was amputated.

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