Category: #misinformation
Several media outlets from Serbia have published articles claiming that Kosovo's president, Hashim Thaçi, has Serbian roots.
These articles state that, allegedly based on some documents preserved in the library of the Orthodox monastery of "Hilandari" in Greece, it is argued that President Thaçi's great-grandfather had converted from the Orthodox religion to Islam, simultaneously changing his nationality from Serbian to Albanian.
The publications of these Serbian media further state that "President Thaçi's grandfather, Jusuf Thaçi, born Radoslav Danilović, was of Serbian nationality and Orthodox religion."
Below you can read the verification of the accuracy of this news.
Dezinormata:
"According to the church chronicle kept in Hilandar, Thaçi's great-grandfather, Jusuf Thaçi, born Radoslav Danilović, was an Orthodox priest in Srbica (Skenderaj). He converted to Islam in 1898, changing his name to Jusuf, and married an Albanian woman, with whom they had 5 children, among them President Thaçi's father.
Experts claim that there is a document about all of this, located in the library of the Hilandar monastery, and originating from the Sokolica monastery.
– The chronicle kept in Hilandar says that Radoslav Danilović converted to Islam and changed his name to Jusuf Thaçi. After accepting Islam, in addition to his wife Popadija, with whom he lived, Jusuf married an Arnaut woman from a village in the Qiqavica region, but she died in childbirth. Jusuf, that is, Radoslav, then married another Arnaut woman from Gllogoc (Drenas) and had five children with her. One of them was the grandfather of Hashim Thaçi – reports the source, who claims that he had a copy of the document in the Hilandar monastery.
According to him, although Thaçi's great-grandfather did not exercise religious rule over the population, he managed to convert the vast majority of his compatriots in Skenderaj to Islam.
– He probably hoped that he would become a hoxha and take over the religious administration in Skenderaj. However, until the end of his life, in 1929, he did not achieve this – reports the source, emphasizing that Danilović's baptism was Mitrovdan.
Some of the headlines of this news published by Serbian media:
https://www.alo.rs/vesti/drustvo/tacijev-pradeda-bio-pop/178164/vest
News verification:
Despite the fact that there is no counter-reaction from the President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, about these news, the editorial staff of hibrid.info has managed to qualify this news as disinformation, since it contains a "mix" of inaccurate sources or even half-truths and unverified content. Also, these articles are composed of several undocumented quotes.