PARIS – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday became the latest high-profile figure against whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced an arrest warrant.

Agence France-Presse looks at the biggest names to be targeted by the court of last resort for the world’s worst crimes, when countries cannot or will not prosecute suspects, although not all of them have been detained.

Joseph Kony

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and other commanders of the Ugandan rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army in 2005 for crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the use of child soldiers and sex slaves. But Kony has never been arrested and remains on the run.

Thomas Lubanga

In its first-ever verdict after taking up its role in 2003, the Hague-based court in 2012 sentenced Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga to 14 years in prison for conscripting children into his rebel army in 2002-2003. It upheld the decision on appeal in 2014.

Lubanga was transferred in 2015 to Kinshasa to serve the rest of his sentence and was freed in 2020.

Jean-Pierre Bemba

Former Democratic Republic of Congo vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba was jailed in 2008 after the ICC convicted him over crimes committed by rebels under his command in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003.

But the court overturned his sentence on appeal in 2018.

Omar al-Bashir

In 2009, Sudan’s ex-president Omar al-Bashir became the first serving head of state to be targeted by an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the western Darfur region.

Fighting erupted in Darfur in 2003 between ethnic minority rebels and Bashir’s Arab-dominated government.

Two years af...