Ramush Haradinaj (; born 3 July 1968) is a Kosovar politician who served as prime minister of Kosovo from 2004 to 2005 and from 2017 to 2020. He was the leader of the AAK party from its founding in 2000 until May 2026, and is a former officer and leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Haradinaj was the KLA's commander for western Kosovo. Following the conflict, Haradinaj went into politics but soon resigned after becoming one of the KLA commanders charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with war crimes and crimes against humanity against Serbs, Romani and Albanians between March and September 1998 during the Kosovo War. He was acquitted of all charges on 3 April 2008. Prosecutors appealed the acquittal and argued that they were not given enough time to secure the testimony of two critical witnesses. In 2010 the Appeals Chamber agreed and ordered a partial retrial in The Hague, Netherlands. The re-trial took just over two years and on 29 November 2012, Haradinaj and his co-defendant were acquitted for a second time on all charges.
Early life and education Ramush Haradinaj was born on July 3, 1968, as the second of nine children in the village of Gllogjan, near Deçan, in Kosovo, which was then part of SFR Yugoslavia. He descends from the Thaçi tribe (fis), which traces its roots to Berishë in northern Albania, near the city of Pukë. Former Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, who is also a member of the Thaçi tribe, confirmed in an interview on the Albanian show Oxygen that Ramush Haradinaj is part of this tribe. He spent his youth in his native village with his parents and siblings, and completed primary school in Irzniq and secondary school in Deçan and Gjakova. After graduating from high school in 1987, he did his mandatory military service in the Yugoslav People's Army. After the Kosovo War, Haradinaj attended law school at the University of Pristina. Haradinaj also earned a master's degree in business from the American University in Kosovo, which is associated with the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
Emigration to Switzerland and joining KLA In 1989, using a false name, Haradinaj emigrated to Leysin, Switzerland. He worked there for eight years as a construction worker, security guard, and bouncer in a nightclub. As the Soviet Union dealt with new internal challenges, movements for independence began to form among many of the ethnicities of the Balkans and other states. In Switzerland, Haradinaj joined the Albanian nationalist organization "People's Movement of Kosovo", from which the KLA originated; this organization wanted to separate Kosovo from Yugoslavia through armed struggle. In 1996, he went through sabotage training in Albania, then participated in the establishment of KLA bases in Kukës and Tropojë. According to media outlets, he organized the smuggling of arms into Kosovo; in one of those operations he was ambushed by border patrols, during which he was wounded and his brother Luan was killed. In 1998, Haradinaj returned to his hometown of Gllogjan in Kosovo.
Kosovo War
In February 1998, the conflict in Kosovo erupted. According to the ICTY indictment against Fatmir Limaj, Haradin Bala and Isak Musliu, between 28 February and 5 March, Serb forces launched an offensive against the KLA-held villages of Likošane, Cirez, and Prekaze.
Serbian special forces attacked three adjacent villages in Drenice. In all, 83 Kosovar Albanians were killed. Among the dead were elderly people and at least 24 women and children. Many of the victims were shot at close range, which suggested summary executions; subsequent reports from eyewitnesses confirmed this. The attacks on these three villages marked a turning point in the war; KLA membership increased as many Albanians began to fear that their village would be targeted next. The next village targeted was Ramush Haradinaj's home village of Glodjane.
Less than three weeks after the attacks in Drenica, Serbian forces surrounded the village of Glodjane and mounted a similar attack. The Haradinaj family, however, was aware of the previous attacks in Drenice and defended the village. According to Haradinaj's own account, they utilized their superior knowledge of the terrain and local defenses to good effect and under the leadership of Haradinaj, they successfully repelled the attack. This job was made more difficult because Serbian police forces captured a group of civilians and used them as human shields – marching the group in front of Serb soldiers as the forces took cover behind them and attempted to kill the Haradinajs.
During the firefight Ramush Haradinaj was seriously wounded after being shot in the hip by a Serbian policeman. He survived by packing his wound with cheese he found in the room where he took cover. During the firefight three young Kosovar Albanian boys under the age of 18 were killed by Serbian forces, which further galvanized the Albanian population to support the KLA.
After successfully repelling the Serbian attack, Haradinaj gained a leadership position in the KLA in Western Kosovo. As war broke out in Western Kosovo during the spring of 1998, Serbian and Albanian families fled the area for fear of getting caught up in the intense hostilities breaking out.
In September 1998, some months later, the bodies of 39 people were found near Glodjane. The victims were local people, of both Albanian and Serbian ethnicity. The discovery of their bodies led to public accusations of war crimes against Haradinaj and his group.
From soldier to politician
After demilitarization of the KLA following NATO's entry into Kosovo in 1999, the KLA was transformed into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). In this new force, Haradinaj was appointed a deputy commander, under Agim Çeku.
He retired from the KPC on 11 April 2000, and announced that he was entering politics. With support from the former communist leader Mahmut Bakalli, Haradinaj founded the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) on 29 April 2000. He was elected president of the party.
Following the Kosovo elections of October 2004, Haradinaj entered into coalition talks with the LDK, led by Dr. Rugova, then President of Kosovo. Rugova formed a government and nominated Haradinaj as Prime Minister. In the Kosovo Assembly, Haradinaj's candidacy for prime minister won the support of 72 members out of 120, with only three opposing.
The PDK opposed Haradinaj's coalition with the Rugova-led LDK. Haradinaj appeared to form a close and productive working relationship with Ibrahim Rugova and other senior figures in the LDK.
In February 2009 the Ugandan Muslim rebel group Allied Democratic Forces asked Haradinaj to mediate peace talks with the central government in Kampala.
On 10 November 2012, Albanian President Bujar Nishani decorated Haradinaj with the Skanderbeg's Order.
Following the elections in Kosovo in June 2017, Haradinaj was elected Prime Minister of Kosovo on 9 September 2017 as leader of the PANA coalition (PDK-AAK-Nisma-AKR) which also includes Kosovo's ethnic minorities.
Trial for war crimes at ICTY
First trial Haradinaj served 100 days as prime minister in 2005 before being indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), at The Hague. The indictment alleges that Haradinaj, as a commander of the KLA, committed crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war between March and September 1998, the alleged purpose of which was to exert control over territory, targeting both Serb, Albanian, and Romani civilians. He was acquitted on 3 April 2008, because of lack of convincing evidence.
When the ICTY indictment was issued in March 2005, Haradinaj chose to step down immediately from his position as prime minister. The following day he travelled voluntarily to The Hague where he submitted himself to the custody of the court and remained for two months until he was granted provisional release pending trial. The head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) during this time, Søren Jessen-Petersen, welcomed the decision Haradinaj to face the tribunal voluntarily, praised his work and described Haradinaj as a "close partner and friend", despite Western intelligence reports that Haradinaj was a key figure in the range between organized crime and politics. Citing Mr. Haradinaj's compliance with the ICTY and the fact that he posed no risk of flight and no risk towards witnesses, the Trial Chamber of the ICTY extended his provisional release and allowed him to wait for trial in his hometown of Prishtina. Further, the Appeals Chamber later granted Haradinaj the unprecedented right for an indictee to engage in public political activity. Such activity was, however, subject to the approval of UNMIK. This step was unprecedented in the history of international criminal law and seen as a reflection of the fact that Mr. Haradinaj voluntarily submitted himself to the court. Critics (and the prosecution), however, argued that this went too far. The prosecution argued that although Mr. Haradinaj posed no threat to witnesses, his mere presence in Kosovo could have a "chilling" effect on whether witnesses would testify.
On 26 February 2007 Haradinaj was flown back to Hague so that the trial could proceed. In the previous days he held meetings with Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu, Prime Minister Agim Çeku, the head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo Joachim Rücker, and various diplomatic offices. At a news conference he urged the public to remain calm and was steadfast in his belief that the trial would result in a full acquittal.
The longtime Chief Prosecutor of International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, has remained steadfastly unimpressed by the international support for Haradinaj, continuing to make strongly negative statements about him. She told the German that "according to the decision to provisionally release him, he is a stability factor for Kosovo. I never understood this. For me he is a war criminal."
The trial, which was enforced by Carla Del Ponte, began on 5 March 2007 and Haradinaj's defence team was led by Ben Emmerson QC, an international human rights lawyer, who had supporting counsel in Rodney Dixon, also of Matrix Chambers of London. The legal defence team as a whole was coordinated by Irish political consultant and financier Michael O'Reilly. At the opening of proceedings, Carla Del Ponte pointed to the problems of the accuser. The intimidation of witnesses was a major problem in the investigation. She claimed that it was difficult to find witnesses who were willing to testify not just to the prosecutors, but also for the tribunal. "The difficulty in Kosovo was that no one helped us, neither the UN administration nor NATO."
On 20 July 2007, Ramush Haradinaj's application for provisional release during the summer court recess was denied. He was granted a second exceptional provisional release over the Christmas court recess. The trial chamber rendered its decision on 3 April 2008: not guilty. Defenders of Haradinaj, Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj did not take a single witness of the defence to the stand, considering it unnecessary. The prosecution was unable to bring three planned witnesses to the courtroom. One of them was committed to a mental health institution at the time he was called to testify. Another, Shefqet Kabashi, refused to testify citing the prosecution's failure to live up to the conditions set for his testimony. Haradinaj's full acquittal, however, was palled by whispers that witnesses had been intimidated. In fact, during the first trial two witnesses failed to attend and it was feared their evidence could have been determinative to the outcome.