Hashim Thaçi

Biography

Hashim Thaçi was born in 1968 in the Drenica valley of Kosovo, the area where the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) later emerged. He studied philosophy and history at the University of Pristina and, after moving to Switzerland, earned a master's degree at the University of Zurich. He joined the KLA's inner circle in 1993, handling funds, arms and recruits, and in 1997 a court in Pristina convicted him of terrorism in absentia.

By 1999 he led the KLA's strongest faction and headed the Kosovo Albanian delegation at the Rambouillet talks. After the war he named himself prime minister of a provisional government, sat on the UN-run Interim Administrative Council, and in October 1999 became leader of the new Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).

The PDK came first in the 2007 elections and parliament chose Thaçi as prime minister in January 2008. On 17 February 2008 he read out Kosovo's declaration of independence, and he governed until December 2014, then served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister before parliament elected him president in 2016.

In November 2020 he resigned after the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague confirmed an indictment against him for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he was arrested. His trial opened in 2023, and in September 2026 he was convicted of war crimes, acquitted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 25 years; his lawyers announced an appeal. He has also been the subject of long-standing allegations of links to organised crime.