On the Fabricated Return of Hashim Thaçi

A staged transcript, a silenced voice, and a complicit outlet, this isn’t journalism; it’s political necromancy for a man indicted for war crimes.

There are moments in the life of a fragile democracy when truth, no matter how inconvenient, must rise above choreography. Kosovo, a young state still wrestling with the scars of war and the weight of unprocessed trauma, is facing such a moment. A recently aired televised “interview” with former President Hashim Thaçi, currently standing trial at The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, ought to have been an opportunity for journalistic clarity and public accountability. Instead, it was a masterclass in political theatre and image rehabilitation, a carefully staged PR stunt disguised as reportage.

Broadcast by Klan Kosova, one of the country’s most influential private media outlets, the segment purported to offer an exclusive, 90-minute exchange with Thaçi from the confines of the UN Detention Centre in Scheveningen. But what the public received was neither an interview nor an exchange. The former President, a central figure in Kosovo’s modern political history, did not appear on screen. His voice was not heard. His facial expressions, body language, tone, and hesitation, those subtle but essential ingredients of human communication were conspicuously absent.

In their place: an interviewer delivering questions to camera, and a narrator reading out what were claimed to be Thaçi’s written responses, shown in crisp white text across the screen.

The format, we are told, was necessitated by the “circumstances” in The Hague. Yet no explanation was provided for why video or audio of the accused could not be shown, nor why the medium of transcription and voiceover was adopted without context. The audience was asked to accept, without evidence, that this was indeed Thaçi speaking—when in truth, there was no evidence at all.

But the deception runs deeper.

To any attentive viewer familiar with Thaçi’s public speaking style, the so-called answers raise immediate red flags. The language is eloquent, precise, and laced with legal and diplomatic nuance. This is not how Thaçi speaks. In numerous press conferences and speeches over the years, the former President has revealed himself to be a man of blunt pragmatism, often struggling with grammar and clarity when speaking without a script. He is not known for reading, let alone writing, with fluency. And yet here, his responses come off like polished essays, linguistically structured, politically cautious, and narratively controlled. The unmistakable touch of a communications professional is all over them. At best, they are ghostwritten; at worst, they are fabricated.

The absence of any disclosure about the authorship or approval process of these answers is another layer of opacity. We are not told whether the responses were dictated by Thaçi, drafted by a legal team, or produced in collaboration with the broadcaster. Nor are we told whether the Specialist Chambers sanctioned the publication of this material. What is clear, however, is that Klan Kosova has failed in its most fundamental journalistic duty: to interrogate power, not to protect it.

What we have witnessed is not an interview. It is a communications product, designed to simulate credibility while denying the public access to truth.

It is no secret in Kosovo that Klan Kosova is part of the Devoli Corporation, a commercial conglomerate whose oligarchic reach stretches across telecommunications, media, and real estate. The Devolis have long-standing political and financial ties to Thaçi’s Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), and to the broader network of wartime elites who rebranded themselves as statesmen after the conflict. Their interests are not ideological; they are structural. They benefit from the very status quo that has kept Kosovo economically stifled, institutionally weak, and internationally ambiguous.

That a media outlet with such affiliations would be the one to launder Thaçi’s image in prime time is, therefore, unsurprising, but no less corrosive. In broadcasting a scripted, stylised, and unverified series of statements under the guise of journalistic inquiry, Klan Kosova has abrogated its public duty. It has chosen proximity to power over truth. It has served not the people of Kosovo, but the myth of Thaçi as the eternal liberator unaccountable, unimpeachable, and above the law.

This whitewashing operation, however, cannot be viewed in isolation. It is part of a long and dangerous pattern.

Under Thaçi’s leadership, Kosovo was systematically looted, not only of its economic potential but of its democratic promise. Twenty years of post-war governance were marked by the entrenchment of political patronage, the decimation of independent institutions, and the violent silencing of dissent. Journalists were threatened and killed. Whistleblowers were ignored and killed. Political rivals were discredited, exiled, or worse, also killed. During his tenure, allegations surfaced, not merely whispered, but substantiated in international forums—linking Thaçi to criminal networks and the illicit extraction of Kosovo’s wealth.

Most damning of all was his administration’s quiet diplomacy with Belgrade, which over time allowed Serbia to regain significant influence in Kosovo’s Serb-majority municipalities, security infrastructure, and even the judiciary. While Thaçi’s public discourse remained wrapped in nationalist rhetoric, his negotiations often betrayed Kosovo’s long-term sovereignty. Natural resources minerals, energy rights, water systems were left vulnerable to foreign interests, including those of Serbia. In essence, the state was gutted while the illusion of independence was preserved.

To invoke the banner of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as justification for this legacy is not merely disingenuous, it is a betrayal. The liberation struggle was real. It was just. But it was never meant to be the private property of those who now invoke it to shield themselves from scrutiny. Thaçi’s inner circle transformed the KLA’s moral authority into political currency, then used that currency to insulate themselves from criticism while enriching themselves through privatisation, contract fraud, and monopolistic control. All in the name of liberty.

In this light, the “interview” is not merely a misstep in editorial judgement. It is a calculated attempt to reclaim the narrative, to restore Thaçi as a nationalist symbol just as his trial enters its most consequential phase. It is a soft coup on public memory, timed to recalibrate perception at a moment when facts should be leading, not disappearing.

Kosovo deserves better than this.

It deserves a media landscape that informs, not distorts. It deserves journalists who disclose, not disguise. It deserves a public conversation grounded in transparency, not theatrics.

And above all, it deserves a reckoning, not only with the crimes of war, but with the crimes that followed in peace.