BAGHDAD - The former top henchmen of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein have experienced wildly different fates, with many detained, others living openly abroad and some still on the run some two-and-a-half years after the US invasion.

So where are the men who formed the public face of Saddam's regime and were the key figures of his government as their former leader faces the humiliation of a public trial for his crimes?

IZZAT IBRAHIM AL-DURI, SADDAM'S RIGHT HAND MAN

Saddam's former right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri is the most senior former regime official still at large, hunted with a 10-million-dollar US bounty on his head. He is accused of playing a key role in sustaining the Iraq insurgency by providing a bridge between elements from the Baath party and Islamist militants.

The king of clubs in the US most-wanted-Iraqis deck of cards, Duri was Iraq's most wanted from the time of Saddam's capture to the rise to infamy of Al-Qaeda frontman in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Iraqi authorities were forced into an embarrassing about face in September 2004 when they claimed to have captured Duri in a shootout in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, near where Duri was born. The detained man turned out to be a relative.

US troops subsequently detained Duri's father-in-law in the northern city of Kirkuk in June of this year, but nothing has been heard of him since. Many believe he may have been killed.

TAREQ AZIZ, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Former foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz was for years the face of Iraq at international events, travelling abroad to represent the country amid security fears for Saddam himself going abroad.

But the man who said before the invasion that he would rather die than go to an American prison nevertheless handed himself over to US forces in Iraq in April 2003.

Letters written by Aziz from behind bars emerged in May, with the 68-year-old complaining bitterly about his conditions of detention.

"I have been accused unjustly, but to date no proper investigation has taken place," said letters published by Britain's Observer newspaper.

He appeared before the Iraqi Special Tribunal in July 2004 and was charged with two counts of mass murder, allegedly committed in 1979 and 1991, punishable by death if he is found guilty. He denies the charges.

Following his court appearance, Aziz urged his family not to worry about him. "My health is good and my morale normal," he wrote in a letter.

A British newspaper reported Sunday that Aziz will testify against his old boss Saddam at the toppled dictator's war crimes trial in return for his freedom.

MOHAMMED SAID AL-SAHHAF, INFORMATION MINISTER

Former information minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf, dubbed Comical Ali for his over-optimistic assessments of Iraqi military performance during the US-led invasion, promptly disappeared with the collapse of the regime.

He resurfaced on Arab satellite television in June 2003, looking thinner and his hair greyer -- reportedly because he could no longer afford to buy hair dye -- saying he had been questioned and released by US forces who deemed him innocent of the regime's crimes.

Sahhaf's war-time verbal attacks on the United States involved words rarely used in Arabic, the most famous of which was "uluj", variously interpreted as strongly-built air-headed people, blood-sucking creatures and wild animals.

He is now living with his family in the UAE emirate of Abu Dhabi, where he is quietly working away on his memoirs.

ALI HASSAN AL-MAJID, 'CHEMICAL ALI'

Dubbed Chemical Ali for his alleged role in the gassing of thousands of Kurdish civilians in 1988, Ali Hassan al-Majid was captured by US forces in Iraq in August 2004.

The most notorious of Saddam's henchman, also his cousin, was regularly called upon to put down any uprising against the regime, in between working as Iraq's minister for local affairs. He was also appointed governor of Kuwait following Saddam's 1990 invasion of the emirate.

The gassing of Kurds in Halabja is thought to have been the biggest ever chemical attack on civilians leaving an estimated 5,000 people, mostly women and children, dead.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal in July released a video of Majid being questioned along with a statement saying that he was asked about the suppression of Shiite resistance in southern Iraq following the 1991 Gulf war.

MOHAMMED AL-DURI, UN AMBASSADOR

Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations in the run-up to the US-led invasion, Mohammed al-Duri, famously announced from New York that "the game is over," as American tanks rumbled into Baghdad.

Reported to have flown to Paris, Duri later appeared on Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television saying he would move to an unspecified Arab country until the "occupation" of Iraq was over, living in Dubai for a bit.

"Pending the liberation of my country (from US forces) and until matters (stabilize), I will go to any place in the Arab world, while promising myself to return to my country," said Duri, who was a teacher before becoming a diplomat.

Duri resides in the UAE emirate of Ajman where he gives lectures at the university. (Agencies)

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