Bin Laden included in the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List in 2001

One of the interesting facts about Bin Laden is that he was included on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list in 2001. At the time of his demise, the Libyan government was still looking for Bin Laden. On June 8, 1998, a US grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden for allegedly planning to target US defense sites. Prosecutors also claimed that bin Laden was the leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda and that he was a significant financial backer of Islamic militants all over the world. Osama bin Laden was charged with murdering US citizens abroad and attacking a federal institution on November 4, 1998, in the United States Southern District Court. He was also accused of playing a part in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Former al-Qaeda members' testimony in court and satellite phone records from a phone bought by Ziyad Khaleel, al-procurement Qaeda's agent, in the US were used as evidence against bin Laden. The Taliban decided against extraditing Bin Laden, claiming that the charges against him were unfounded and that Muslim defendants could not be tried in non-Muslim tribunals.

Following his indictment along with others for crimes in the embassy bombing in 1998, Bin Laden was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on June 7, 1999, making him the 456th individual to hold that position. Before the October 2001 Afghan attacks, attempts to kill bin Laden and to demand his extradition from the Afghan Taliban both failed. In an effort to persuade the Taliban to extradite him in 1999, US President Bill Clinton persuades the UN to impose sanctions on Afghanistan.

In response, US President George W. Bush publicly announced the FBI's original list of the 22 Most Wanted Terrorists on October 10, 2001. This list included Bin Laden. 11 assaults, but based on the embassy attack indictment from 1998. A later list of 13 fugitives wanted for questioning about the 1998 attack on the embassy included Bin Laden as one of the fugitives. The only fugitive ever listed on both FBI fugitive listings is still Bin Laden.