Hashim Thaçi (born 24 April 1968) is a Kosovan politician and convicted war criminal. He was the first prime minister of Kosovo (2008–2014) and the foreign minister and deputy prime minister (2014–2016) in the cabinet led by Isa Mustafa. He served as president of Kosovo from 2016 until his resignation in 2020.
Thaçi is from the region of Drenica in Kosovo, which is where the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) originated. He studied philosophy in Pristina before moving to Switzerland, where he joined the KLA in 1993. An Albanian nationalist, he rose through the ranks of the KLA to become leader of the most powerful faction by 1999, during the Rambouillet negotiations. He then joined the interim Kosovo administration after the war.
Thaçi became leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which won the largest share of the vote in the 2007 Kosovo elections. In 2008, Thaçi declared the independence of Kosovo and became its first prime minister. In 2016 he was elected president of Kosovo. Thaçi pursued a pro-American policy while in office.
There have been controversies regarding Thaçi's role in the KLA and allegations about him being involved in organized crime. In 2020, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor's Office in The Hague filed a ten-count indictment against Thaçi and others, charging them with crimes against humanity and war crimes. To face these charges, Thaçi resigned from the presidency, stating that he did so to "protect the integrity of the presidency of Kosovo". He was arrested and pleaded not guilty to all charges. The Specialist Prosecutor's Office sought a sentence of 45 years imprisonment for war crimes and persecution of Serb and Roma minorities. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for war crimes.
Hashim Thaçi was born on 24 April 1969 in the village of Burojë, Skenderaj, SFR Yugoslavia (now Kosovo). His family comes from the Thaçi tribe. Skenderaj is located in the Drenica valley, a region historically resistant to Serbian rule. Drenica would become the birthplace of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the early 1990s.
Thaçi studied philosophy and history at the University of Pristina. 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, achieving a master's degree.
As a young man, Thaçi joined the People's Movement of Kosovo (LPK), an underground group committed to overthrowing the Yugoslav government that had been historically financed and ideologically shaped by the regime of Albania's former dictator, Enver Hoxha.
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. On 22 May 1993, together with Ilaz Kodra, Thaçi led an attack in Glogovac against Serbian police. The attack was a victory for the KLA; five officers were killed and two were injured.
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, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Thaçi participated in the Battle of Rezalla, the KLA's first major battle, which occurred on 25 November. Many Yugoslav fighters were killed and their artillery and vehicles damaged after they were ambushed by KLA insurgents led by Adem Jashari. As a result, Yugoslav forces retreated to the village of Llausha where they shot two Albanian teachers who worked in the primary school of the village.
In March 1999, Thaçi participated in the Rambouillet negotiations as the leader of the Kosovar Albanian team. Thaçi was perceived by western diplomats during the negotiations as the "voice of reason" within the KLA; his attendance 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.
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.
Thaçi was alleged of having extensive criminal links. During his time as head of the Kosovo Liberation Army, The Washington Times reported that the KLA was financing its activities by trafficking heroin and cocaine into western Europe. The KLA received an estimated $75-100 million from the Albanian diaspora in Europe and the United States. There is a possibility that among donors to the KLA were people involved in illegal activities such as drug trafficking; however, insufficient evidence exists to prove direct KLA involvement.
The BBC reported in 2000 that Thaçi was 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. 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. The PDK 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.
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."
A 2008 analysis of organised crime in Kosovo prepared by the German intelligence service BND and a confidential report contracted by the German military accused Thaçi, Ramush Haradinaj, and Xhavit Haliti, the majority leader of the Kosovo parliament, of far-reaching involvement in organised crime. The BND wrote: "The key players (including Haliti, Haradinaj, and Thaçi) are intimately involved in inter-linkages between politics, business, and organised crime structures in Kosovo." The report accused Thaçi of leading a "criminal network operating throughout Kosovo" by the end of the 1990s. The BND report accused Thaçi of having contacts with the Czech and Albanian mafias. It said that he, together with Haliti, ordered killings by a professional hit man, 'Afrimi', responsible for at least 11 contract murders.
Thaçi has faced other accusations, such as the involvement in the lucrative heroin trade in the 1990s when officers of the Kosovo Liberation Army and their backers were moving staggering quantities of narcotics through an underworld network into Central Europe. Police had long suspected that illegal narcotics were fueling the revolt in Kosovo.
A report to the Council of Europe, written by Dick Marty, issued on 15 December 2010 states that Hashim Thaçi was the leader of the "Drenica Group" in charge of trafficking organs taken from Serbian prisoners. As reported by several international, Serbian, Kosovan and Albanian news agencies, in an interview for Albanian television on 24 December 2010, Thaçi said he would publish information about Marty and Marty's collaborators' names.