The Criminals Want Kosovo Back

Behind every ‘interview’ and meme is a grave. Thaçi ruled through terror; Buzhala spins the legacy. The return they want is a return to rot.

There are wounds a country carries that never truly heal. Kosovo, still wrestling with the ghosts of its violent birth and the corrosive aftermath of state capture, finds itself once again gripped by a crisis of memory and accountability. This week, former President Hashim Thaçi, awaiting judgement at The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, returned to the airwaves, not in person, but in carefully narrated form¹. Broadcast by Klan Kosova, the so-called “exclusive interview” was less a journalistic coup and more a stage-managed rehabilitation of a man whose legacy has left a trail of blood, fear and unburied truth.

It was not his voice that the public heard, nor his image that appeared. There was no body language, no cross-examination, no real-time reaction. Just a faceless narrator reading lines allegedly authored by Thaçi himself, eloquent, diplomatic, scrubbed clean of any trace of spontaneity. A narrative sanitised, stylised and stripped of scrutiny.

And yet, perhaps more disturbing than the broadcast itself was its amplification by media figures who have long served as informal custodians of Kosovo’s shadow elite. Chief among them: Berat Buzhala, a former parliamentarian turned media baron whose editorial footprint mirrors that of a well-oiled propaganda machine.

Buzhala, whose platform Nacionale enthusiastically promoted the interview, hailed Thaçi as the "future Prime Minister" of Kosovo², a chilling proposition not only for the victims of his decades-long rule, but for anyone who still believes in justice, truth and democratic renewal.

To understand why such a notion is not merely absurd but dangerous, one must revisit the legacy Thaçi left behind. Not through the prism of international tribunal transcripts, but through the local graves, silenced voices, and broken institutions that have yet to recover.

During Thaçi’s political dominion from the post-war transitional period to the near-absolute grip of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), a disturbing pattern emerged. Those who challenged, exposed, or threatened the architecture of impunity around him were too often met not with debate, but with elimination.

Some were killed. Others silenced. A few were turned into ghosts by the very state they sought to hold accountable.

Dino Asanaj, head of the Kosovo Privatisation Agency, was found in 2012 with nine stab wounds across his body, two on the right side, seven on the left, and finally two to the chest, including a fatal one near the heart. Despite the violence of the injuries, some authorities insisted it was a suicide³. No arrests. No resolution. Just a funeral attended by top political elites who had every reason to avoid uncomfortable questions.

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