Many of the leading protagonists of Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war are either in detention on war crimes charges, or dead. Here are some key figures.

Alija Izetbegovic

1925-2003

Bosnia’s first president, a Muslim who led the country to independence in 1992 in a move that triggered a three-and-a-half year war between Muslims, Serbs and Croats. He stepped down in 2000 due to failing health and died three years later. His son Bakir Izetbegovic was elected the Muslim member of the presidency in October 2009 general elections.

Radovan Karadzic

1945-

A trained psychiatrist, Karadzic was the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs. He spent 14 years on the run before he was arrested in Belgrade in 2008. His trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Sarajevo bloody siege and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, started in October 2009. He told the court that atrocities apparently committed by Bosnian Serbs during the Sarajevo siege were “staged” by the Muslim side and dismissed the Srebrenica massacre as a “myth.” He was sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment

Biljana Plavsic

1930-

The former Bosnian Serb president is the highest ranking official of the former Yugoslavia to have acknowledged responsibility for atrocities committed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. “I ... accept the fact that many thousands of innocent people were the victims of an organised, systematic effort to remove Muslims and Croats from the territory claimed by Serbs,” she told court in a statement. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty before the ICTY for playing a leading role in a campaign of persecution against Croats and Muslims during Bosnia’s war. Plavsic was granted early release in 2009 and settled in Belgrade.

Radislav Krstic

1948-:

The general who directed the attack against Srebrenica was the first Bosnian Serb to be found guilty for aiding and abetting genocide by the ICTY. He is currently serving a 35-year sentence for the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys following the fall of the UN protected enclave in July 1995.

Mate Boban

1940-1997

Bosnian Croat wartime leader and president of the Croat separatist statelet of Herceg-Bosna, Boban was ousted in 1994 under US pressure when the Muslim-Croat Federation was created ending fierce fighting between Bosnia’s Croats and Muslims. He died of a stroke in 1997.

Franjo Tudjman

1922-1999:

A fervent nationalist who led Croatia throughout its 1991-1995 independence war until his death in 1999. During Bosnia’s war Tudjman backed Bosnian Croats and effectively negotiated for them during the Dayton peace agreement that ended the conflict.

Slobodan Milosevic

1941-2006

Serbian strongman, elected its president in 1990, Milosevic played a key role in supporting Serb rebels during the 1990s war that accompanied the former Yugoslavia’s collapse. He negotiated the Dayton peace deal on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs. Chased from power by a popular movement in 2000 and later handed over to the ICTY, he died in detention in 2006 while his trial on war crimes charges was still under way.

– Compiled from agencies