Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib

Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib Al-Hasani (Arabic: أحمد معاذ الخطيب‎, born 1960) is the President of the National Coalition for Opposition Forces and the Syrian Revolution. He is a former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
 

Al-Khatib originally studied applied geophysics and worked as an engineer for six years. He is a member of the Syrian Geological Society and the Syrian Society for Psychological Science. He was previously President and remains Honorary President of the Islamic Society of Urbanization.

Early Life and Career

Born in 1960, Khatib comes from a well-known Sunni Muslim Damascene family. His father, Sheikh Mohammed Abu al-Faraj al-Khatib, was a prominent Islamic scholar and preacher.
 

Khatib originally studied geophysics. He spent six years working as an engineer. He is also a member of the Syrian Geological Society and the Syrian Society for Psychological Science, and was president of the Islamic Society of Urbanization. His status as the former imam makes him a key figure in Syria's religious establishment.

He later became prominent as an Islamic preacher, and became the preacher of the Umayyad Mosque in the early 1990s. After he was banned from preaching during the rule of Mr Assad's father, the late Hafez al-Assad, Khatib began to teach Islam secretly.

Khatib also established the Islamic Civilization Society, and taught Sharia (Islamic Law) at the Sheikh Badr al-Din al-Husni Institute in Damascus, and Daawa (Call to Islam) at the Tahzib Institute for Sharia Sciences. He traveled internationally to teach including Bosnia-Hercegovina, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Turkey, the UK and the USA. 
 

The Syrian journalist and writer Rana Kabbani, a long time friend of Khatib, said "Over the years, we have had a very intense political conversation about what needed to be done in Syria, long discussions about what was wrong with the society and what could be done about it. He was my window into Syria at a time when I couldn't physically go there." Kabbani continued to say"He comes from an area in the old city of Damascus, a part of the city that was noted for its advocacy against French colonialists, producing freedom fighters. It was a traditional Damascene Muslim scene, a devout Sunni area with a long history of resistance. "He cared very deeply about the victims of the 1982 massacre [in the Syrian city of Hama]. He was always seeking for ways to house or educate those [survivors] that the state wanted killed or banished."

From: www.wikipedia.org

Mladen Markač

Mladen Markač (born 8 May 1955) is a Croatian retired general. He was a Commander of Croatian Special Police during Operation Storm during the Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995), and afterwards held the rank of Colonel General. Later, he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes committed during Operation Storm by Croatian forces against the Serbs from Croatia. In April 2011, the ICTY found him guilty and sentenced him to 18 years. On 16 November 2012, he was found not guilty on all charges by the appeals panel at the ICTY, and immediately set free. A government plane flew him home, where he received a hero's welcome across all of Croatia.

Early Life and Career

Mladen Markač was born in 1955 in Đurđevac, in the Republic of Croatia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). In 1981, he graduated from the University of Zagreb, and in 1982, he completed his compulsory military service. He then joined the police force of the SFRY Ministry of the Interior.

In 1990, Markač and others established a police unit for special tasks in the Ministry of the Interior. He was appointed Deputy Commander and in late 1990, this unit became the Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit. In 1991, Mladen Markač was appointed the head of the Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit. In 1992, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel General (reserve).

From: www,wikipedia.org

Ante Gotovina

Ante Gotovina (born 12 October 1955) is a Croatian retired lieutenant general and former French senior corporal who served in the Croatian War for Independence. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him on a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity charges for crimes committed in 1995 during and in the aftermath of Operation Storm. After spending four years in hiding, he was captured in the Canary Islands in December 2005. In April 2011, Gotovina was found guilty on eight of the nine counts of the indictment and sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment. On 16 November 2012, he was found not guilty on all charges by the appeals panel at the ICTY, and immediately set free. A Croatian government plane flew the general home, where he received a hero's welcome across all of Croatia.

Early Life

Ante Gotovina was born in Tkon on the island of Pašman. His father Milan tried to move with his mother to Italy, but was caught by the Yugoslav border police. His mother was released while his father spent time in prison. When Gotovina was nearly four his mother was killed saving him from an explosion from a construction site. After that his father went to work in Zagreb, while Gotovina and his siblings went to his maternal grandfather Šime in Pakoštane. Around Easter of 1971, Gotovina and his friend Srećko tried to escape by sailing away. Soon they returned to Pakoštane after a storm caused troubles at sea. Gotovina hid his attempt to escape from his family and continued to attend school for electrical engineering in Zadar.

From: www.wikipedia.org

Ivo Sanader

Ivo Sanader (born Ivica Sanader; 8 June 1953) is a Croatian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Croatia from 2003 to 2009.

Sanader obtained his education in comparative literature in Austria, where he also worked as a journalist, in marketing, publishing and also as a private entrepreneur. In the 1990s, he was briefly in charge of the theatre in Split before becoming the Minister of Science and Technology as a member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Soon thereafter, he moved to diplomacy, and served two terms as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He was elected leader of the HDZ party in 2000 and 2002, and with them won the 2003 election, becoming the Prime Minister. He was also reelected in the 2007 parliamentary elections. In June 2009, Sanader abruptly resigned his post, leaving scarce explanation for his actions, and rumours of involvement in various criminal cases circulated. In January 2010, he tried to stage a political comeback inside HDZ, but was ejected from party membership.

In December 2010, the Croatian authorities charged him in two high-profile corruption indictments, but he fled the country and was arrested in Austria, being extradited to Croatia in July 2011. In November 2012 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a first instance verdict.

Early Life

Ivo Sanader was born in Split, into a religious, poor working family with four siblings. Since his family was financially unable to educate all five children, his mother asked the rector of Archbishopric Classical Gymnasium to accept Ivo as their student. After completing his high school education, Sanader moved to Rome to pursue higher education in philosophy. He soon realized that he did not like the academic environment there very much. Following his return from Rome he met his future spouse, Mirjana Šarić, whom he married in 1978.

After their wedding, Ivo and Mirjana left Split for Innsbruck. His wife studied archaeology, while Ivo studied comparative literature and Romance languages at the University of Innsbruck. The young couple was accompanied, while studying in Innsbruck, by Ivo’s younger brother Miro who also lived and studied in Innsbruck. During that time, Sanader also reported for the Zagreb sport newspaper Sportske novosti.

In 1982, Sanader graduated, and returned to Croatia (then Yugoslavia) with his wife. He found a job in the marketing department of Dalmacijaturist, however he did not stay long. He found his next job at the publishing house Logos in 1983 where he was employed as a program editor. In 1988, he became a chief editor and at one time he was working on the organization of the magazine Mogućnost. His career at the publishing house was later terminated suddenly. At that time, his wife also received a notice of termination from her workplace.

Sanader then decided to return to Austria with his family. There he co-founded two private businesses, one in 1989 which was liquidated by a court in 1992, while the other existed between 1986 and 2001. Sanader obtained a B.A. in Romance languages and comparative literature from Innsbruck University in Austria.

Apart from his native Croatian, he is fluent in English, German, French, and Italian.

From: www.wikipedia.org