Hashim Thaçi

Hashim Thaçi was born in the village of Broćna, Srbica (Albanian Skenderaj), SR Serbia (now Buroja, Skenderaj, Kosovo).[6][7] Srbica is located in the Drenica valley, a historical region resistant of Serbian rule.[8] Drenica would become the birthplace of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the early 1990s.[8]

Thaçi studied philosophy and history at the University of Pristina.[8] By 1993, he was living in Switzerland, where he joined the Albanian political émigré group. He registered for postgraduate studies at the University of Zürich in the departments of history and international relations and later got his masters.[9][10]

In 1993, Thaçi became a member of the inner circle of the KLA. The charisma of leaders such as Thaçi helped the KLA gain support from Kosovo Albanians.[11] Thaçi (nom de guerre "Gjarpëri" - The Snake) was responsible for securing financial means and armaments, and training recruits in Albania to be dispatched to Kosovo. On 11 July 1997, Thaçi was tried in absentia and convicted by the District Court in Pristina for terrorism associated with his activities in the KLA, sentenced to 10 years in prison.[12]

In March 1999, Thaçi participated in the Rambouillet negotiations as the leader of the Kosovar Albanian team.[13] Thaçi was perceived by western diplomats during the negotiations as the "voice of reason" within the KLA: his attendance at the negotiations demonstrated a willingness to accept autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia at a time when other rebel leaders rejected any solution short of full national independence.[13]

Thaçi emerged from the final diplomatic settlement as the leader of the strongest faction within a KLA rife with factionalism. He moved quickly to consolidate power, unilaterally naming himself prime minister within a provisional government and allegedly ordering the assassination of the leaders of rival armed factions.[14][15]

Wanted poster for Hashim Thaçi from 1998 issued by Serbian police on Kosovo based on K-37/97 of the District Court in Priština. It reads that Thaçi is sentenced to 10 years for his role in KLA and other terrorist activities including the attack on police in Glogovac.

Thaçi is alleged to have extensive criminal links.[16][17][18][19] During the period of time when he was head of the Kosovo Liberation Army, The Washington Times reported that the KLA was financing its activities by trafficking the illegal drugs of heroin and cocaine into western Europe.[20] The KLA received large funds from the Albanian diaspora in Europe and the United States. It is estimated that those funds amounted from $75 million to $100 million.[11] There is a possibility that among donors to the KLA were people involved in illegal activities such as drug trafficking, however insufficient evidence exists that the KLA itself was involved in such activities.[11]

The BBC reported in 2000 that Thaçi is allegedly central to the criminal activities of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), who reportedly extorted money from businessmen under the guise of "taxes" for his self-appointed government.[21] While the KLA was officially disbanded at the end of armed conflict in Kosovo in 1999, the new Kosovo Protection Corps was composed primarily of former KLA fighters and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK). The party was formed largely from the political leadership of the KLA. A near monopoly on the means of force, based on the absorption of the KLA into the KPC, allowed the Democratic Party of Kosovo to seize control of the machinery of government at the municipal level.[21] The PDK has regularly used violence and intimidation of political rivals to maintain local political control and protect criminal enterprises that depend upon cooperation from friendly local authorities.[22]

In 2001, the Democratic Party of Kosovo suffered electoral defeat in the first free elections in the province in 2001. The BBC said at the time, "The tumbling reputation of the former KLA was to have a disastrous effect on the PDK because of the perceived overlap between its political leadership and post-KLA organised crime."[23]

A 2008 analysis of organised crime in Kosovo prepared by the German intelligence service BND and a confidential report contracted by the German military, the Bundeswehr, accuse Thaçi, Ramush Haradinaj, and Xhavit Haliti, the majority leader of the Kosovo parliament, of far-reaching involvement in organised crime. The BND writes: "The key players (including Haliti, Haradinaj, and Thaçi) are intimately involved in inter-linkages between politics, business, and organised crime structures in Kosovo."[24] The report accuses Thaçi of leading a "criminal network operating throughout Kosovo" by the end of the 1990s.[24] The BND report accuses Thaçi of contacts with the Czech and Albanian mafias. It says that he, together with Haliti, ordered killings by a professional hit man, 'Afrimi', who is responsible for at least 11 contract murders.[24]

According to the 8 March 2016 issue of the French newspaper "Le Figaro", Thaçi is likely to be charged by the ICTY for a wide range of atrocities, including organs trafficking.[25][26] The paper also claims that former UNMIK administrator for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, might be summoned to testify. Kouchner himself has been regularly accused of "turning a blind eye" on the atrocities committed by the KLA members.[25]

List of state visits made by Hashim Thaçi as president.

#	Country	Year	Cities visited	Type of visit
1	Vatican City	2016, 2017	Vatican City	State visit[48][49]
2	Albania	2016, 2019, 2020	Tirana, Durrës, Kodër-Thumanë	State visit[50][51]
3	Brazil	2016	Rio de Janeiro	Rio 2016 Opening Ceremony[52]
4	Turkey	2016	Ankara	State visit[53]
5	Malta	2016	Valletta	State visit[54]
6	Panama	2016	Panama City	State Visit
7	United States	2017, 2018, 2019, 2020	Washington, D.C., New York City, Des Moines	State visit,[55][56][57] Working visit[58][59][60]
8	Jordan	2017	Amman	State visit[61]
9	Austria	2017	Vienna	State visit[62]
10	Croatia	2017	Zagreb	State visit[63]
11	Montenegro	2017	Podgorica	State visit[64]
12	Canada	2017	Halifax, Ottawa	State visit[65]
13	Bulgaria	2017, 2018	Sofia	State visit,[66] Working visit[67]
14	France	2017, 2018, 2019	Paris	State visit,[68] Working visit[69]
15	Switzerland	2018	Davos	Working visit[70]
16	South Korea	2018	Pyeongchang	Pyeongchang 2018 Opening Ceremony[71]
17	North Macedonia	2018, 2019	Skopje	State visit[72] Inauguration of Stevo Pendarovski
18	Armenia	2018	Yerevan	Francophonie Summit[73]
19	Belarus	2018, 2019	Minsk	Working visit[74][75]
20	Germany	2019, 2020	Munich, Berlin	Working visit[76][77]
21	Slovakia	2019	Bratislava	Globsec Forum[78]
22	Japan	2019	Tokyo, Osaka	State visit[79][80]
23	Monaco	2019	Monte Carlo	Working visit[81]

•  Albania: On 20 June 2008 received a copy of the key of the city of Tirana on the occasion of his state visit to Albania.[82]
  • Also on 20 June, Thaçi was awarded the Honorary Citizen of the city of Vlorë, for his "historic role in making Kosovo an independent state".[83]
  • In January 2015 Hashim Thaçi was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Tirana, for his contribution in peace-building in Western Balkans, promoting the process of European integrations and achieving the historic Brussels Agreement with Serbia.
  • On 4 October 2016 he was awarded Honorary Citizenship of Shkodër, in a ceremony led by the Mayor of this northern Albanian city.

•   Switzerland: On 1 July 2012, Thaçi received a Doctor Honoris Causa degree as a Doctor of International Relations from the Geneva School of Diplomacy in a ceremony held in that city. Previous recipients of this award include Martin Gray, a Holocaust survivor and writer; Adolf Ogi, the former president of Switzerland; and José Ramos-Horta, President of East Timor and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.[84]
•  United States of America: In 2014, Albanian and Serbian Caucuses of US Congress nominated President Thaçi and Serbian FM Ivica Dačić for the Nobel Peace Prize, for their role in achieving the Serbia-Kosovo peace deal.[85]
•  Montenegro: On 4 April 2015, on Ulcinj Day, Thaçi received the title of Honorary Citizen of Ulcinj by the town's municipal government.[86]

• Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (1 March 2009). Britannica Book of the Year 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. pp. 107–. ISBN 978-1-59339-232-1.

• Boyes, Roger; Jagger, Suzy (2018). New State, Modern Statesman: Hashim Thaçi – A Biography. Biteback Publishing. ISBN 9781785903304.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hashim Thaci.

• Prime Minister of Kosovo Official Website
• PDK Partia Demokratike e Kosovës (in Albanian)
• Kryetari Thaçi: Populli i Kosovës dhe UÇK-ja ishin një A Thaçi interview by "Kosova Sot" daily (in Albanian)
• BBC News Profile
• Thaçi comments on the future of Kosovo at United States Institute of Peace