Karadzic: The U.N.'s most wanted

Karadzic is wanted for genocide

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Radovan Karadzic is the U.N.'s most wanted man for his alleged role in some of the worst atrocities seen since the end of World War II.

The Bosnian-Serb leader is accused of having been responsible for running concentration-style detention camps, and the massacre at the NATO so-called safe haven of Srebrenica.

The disappearance of most of the town's estimated 6,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995 is seen as the single worst European war crime since 1945.

He is also wanted for the sniping campaign against civilians in Sarajevo and the taking of 284 U.N. peacekeepers to be used as human-shields.

Born in 1945 in Savnik, in the Republic of Montenegro, he rose to be president of the Bosnian Serb administration in the skiing resort of Pale.

The former poet and consultant psychiartrist at Kosovo hospital in Sarajevo was the founding member and president of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) of what was then the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

IN-DEPTH Srebrenica: Five days of evil   • Survivor's Story   • Gallery   • Massacre background   • Rebuilding Srebrenica   • Prayers for the dead   • Grief of the widows   • Mass grave found   • War crimes defendants   • Profile: Radko Mladic   • Profile: Radovan Karadzic   MORE STORIES • CNN Access 'Watershed' arrest attempt  • Karadzic evades NATO arrest    RESOURCES U.N.'s indictment against Karadzic

Under his power were the army and police forces which have been accused of carrying out genocide, and a policy of ethnic cleansing within Bosnia-Herzegovina.

He is jointly indicted along with Radko Mladic for their roles as political and military leaders during the war between 1992 and 1995 which saw Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat homes and businesses destroyed.

Civilians were rounded up in detention centres such as Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje, Luka, Manjaca, Susica and KP Dom Foca and allegedly subjected to torture, killings, and physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

Karadzic has been on the run since 1995 when the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued an international warrant for his arrest.

During that time he has displayed audacity in escaping NATO attempts to capture him.

He has reportedly shaved his trademark bushy hair and grown a beard as well as donned priest's robes as he moves from monastery to monastery in the mountains.

But he is reported to have entered his home area to visit his daughter and son as well as his mother who still lives in Montenegro.