Hashim Thaci Biography

Hashim Thaçi[a] ([hä'ʃɪm 'θɑ:t͡ʃɪ] ( listen), [born 24 April 1968) is the President of Kosovo. He was the first Prime Minister of Kosovo and the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in the new cabinet led by Isa Mustafa, which assumed office on 12 December 2014. Thaçi was also the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK). He rose to prominence as the political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a paramilitary organisation which was active during the Kosovo War. In the meantime, he also served as head of a provisional government towards the end of and immediately after the war in 1999. He has been identified as the head of a "mafia-like" Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime.