Hashim Thaci
Hashim Thaci led a guerrilla army, declared Kosovo independent, and resigned the presidency to face an indictment for the war he had won. He was a student organiser who helped found the Kosovo Liberation Army in the early 1990s, when Ibrahim Rugova's parallel state - unofficial schools, hospitals and taxes run alongside Serbian administration - was the dominant strategy of Albanian resistance and a peaceful one. The KLA's argument was that it had achieved nothing. Its attacks and the Serbian reprisals escalated through 1998 until NATO bombed for seventy-eight days in 1999 and Serbian forces withdrew. He headed the delegation at Rambouillet, ran a provisional government, and became prime minister of the United Nations protectorate in 2008. On 17 February that year Kosovo declared independence, recognised within days by the United States and most of the European Union and never by Serbia, Russia or five EU members. The International Court of Justice was asked whether the declaration had broken international law and answered in 2010 that it had not, which is narrower than it sounds: the court ruled on the act of declaring rather than on the statehood that followed. Serbia has never accepted it, and Serbian institutions still function in the Serb-majority municipalities north of the Ibar. A Council of Europe report in 2010 accused KLA commanders including him of the murder of prisoners and of organ trafficking after the war. He denied it, and a special court was established at The Hague to examine the allegations. He was president from 2016. In November 2020 the court confirmed an indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he resigned the same day and flew to The Hague voluntarily, saying the office should not be put on trial with him. His trial began in 2023, and Kosovo remains recognised by about half the world's states.
- Lived: 1968 CE – ?
- Nationality: Kosovar
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
