Who Is Fahri Musliu

Fahri Musliu (born in Zaplluxhë near Dragash, 1948) is an Albanian journalist, author and translator from Kosovo and Metohija. For almost three decades he was one of the few journalists reporting to the Albanian public from Belgrade, working as a correspondent for the newspaper Rilindja, the Albanian service of Voice of America, Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK) and the BBC.

He is also the author of several books, including a diary of the NATO bombing in 1999, a book about the trials of Albanians, and a monograph on the actor Bekim Fehmiu. After retiring in 2013 he returned to Prizren, where he also became involved in politics.

Early Life and Childhood

Fahri Musliu was born in 1948 in the village of Zaplluxhë in Opoja, an area of Dragash municipality in southern Kosovo and Metohija. Most sources give only the year of birth, while one gives the exact date as 20 July 1948. He completed primary school in his home area.

By his own account, his childhood was marked by an early loss. His father, a hafiz, was killed at the age of twenty-eight, when Fahri was about four years old, and the killer was never found. Two years later his grandfather died as well, and his uncle, the only adult male in the family, worked in Belgrade. As a result, at the age of seven or eight he took on responsibility for his mother, younger brother, grandmother and aunt.

Education

After primary school, Musliu wanted to enroll in the medical secondary school in Prizren. Because no first-year students were admitted in the 1963/64 school year, he enrolled in the gymnasium in Prizren instead and completed it in 1966/67.

After military service and several years of teaching, he decided to study journalism. In the 1972/73 school year he enrolled as a part-time student at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, in the journalism department. He was not admitted to full-time studies, and part-time study allowed him to work and support his family. The Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade is also listed in his public profile, but none of the sources reviewed confirms when he graduated.

Early Career

Musliu wrote his first journalistic pieces while still in secondary school. According to one interview, he sent a short item about the opening of a grain and flour shop in a neighboring village to Rilindja, then the only Albanian-language daily in Kosovo and Metohija, and it was published. Most sources give 1968 as the start of his journalistic work, when he contributed to Rilindja and worked with Radio Pristina.

From October 1967 to the end of November 1969 he worked as a teacher in a primary school in his home area. He served his military service in Bileća from November 1969 to the end of April 1971, and then returned to the same school, where he stayed until September 1972. By his account, plans for a job in local administration were blocked by officials who considered him politically unsuitable because he had voted against the local party secretary. That episode, he says, steered him toward journalism studies in Belgrade.

He moved to Belgrade in the autumn of 1972, leaving his family in Zaplluxhë. To support himself he worked at the city sanitation company and, from January 1978, at the Infostan company. At the same time he studied and resumed cooperation with Rilindja from Belgrade, mostly writing about culture and the life of Albanians in the capital.

Correspondent for Rilindja and Radio Yugoslavia

From April 1982 Musliu worked in the Albanian-language editorial office of Radio Yugoslavia. His career changed decisively in 1985, when he became the permanent Belgrade correspondent of Rilindja. Sources differ on the exact date: most give 1 April 1985, while he mentions May of that year in one interview.

At the time, Rilindja had a large circulation and considerable influence among Albanians in Yugoslavia. Musliu reported on party plenums, congresses and parliamentary sessions devoted to Kosovo and Metohija. He later said that he worked independently and that no editor ever censored his texts. He also wrote for other Albanian papers, as well as for the Belgrade and Zagreb outlets Borba, Naša Borba, Danas and Vjesnik.

When Rilindja was shut down in August 1990 by the authorities of the time, he continued as a correspondent for the daily Bujku. In his own words, he never felt inferior in Belgrade and often entered into polemics with colleagues and academics.

Correspondent for Voice of America, RTK and the BBC

From 1993 Musliu was the Belgrade correspondent of the Albanian service of Voice of America. Sources differ on the month he started: two give May and one gives June 1993. He worked for Voice of America until June 2005.

In June 2005 he moved to Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK) as a permanent correspondent from Belgrade, staying until his retirement in 2013. Sources give July, or the end of July 2013, as the time of his retirement. In parallel, from 2008 to 2012, he also reported for the Albanian service of the BBC. Most sources give that range, while one interview mentions January 2007 as the start.

During these years he covered mainly the political situation in Serbia and topics related to Kosovo and Metohija. He often worked from early morning until late at night, especially during political gatherings and parliamentary debates.

Fahri Musliu in Belgrade During the NATO Bombing in 1999

The best-known chapter of his career is linked to 1999. When NATO began air strikes on Yugoslavia on 24 March 1999, Musliu was one of the few Albanians who stayed in Belgrade. His family was in Prizren, and he had very little contact with them.

Although some foreign embassies offered him the chance to leave Belgrade, he refused. He later explained that his profession decided it for him, because reporting from a war zone is hugely important for a journalist. As a Voice of America correspondent he was under pressure. Foreign media reporting was banned during the war, and, by his own account, he received threats by phone and through the intercom of his apartment. There were few Albanians left in the city, as most had left in the first days.

From those days came a diary that he later published as a book. He returned to Prizren on 24 June 1999, after ninety days of this period, and was reunited with his family.

Greatest Achievements

The greatest achievements of Fahri Musliu are tied to his decades-long journalistic work and to books that document turning points in the recent history of Kosovo and Metohija. Professionally, he stands out for working as a correspondent in key newsrooms of the Albanian-speaking world at a time when reporting from Belgrade was especially demanding.

In addition, his diary notes from 1999, published in Albanian and Serbian, are regarded as valuable testimony of that period. According to reviewers, the author recorded not only political events but also the human side of life in Belgrade during the war.

Books and Publishing

Besides journalism, Musliu works as an author and translator. According to available bibliographies, he has published the following books:

• “Tunelet e tmerrit” (Pristina, 1992), co-authored with Ibrahim Osmani;
• “Gjykimet e pengjeve” (Prizren, 2002), on the trials of Albanian prisoners, published in Serbian as “Montirani proces protiv kosovskih Albanaca” (Belgrade, 2007); an expanded edition appeared as “Proceset e kurdisura kundër shqiptarëve të Kosovës (1999–2001)”;
• “Shthurja e nyjës së Kosovës – shikimi nga dy anë” (Belgrade, 2005), co-authored with Dragan Bajnac, in Albanian, Serbian and English;
• “Zyber Kryeziu – Baca, atdhetar i paepur i Opojës” (Prizren, 2006);
• “Ditari i një shqiptari në Beograd” (Prizren, 2006), published in Serbian as “Dnevnik Albanca u Beogradu” (2007) and reissued in 2023 as “Ditari i gazetarit shqiptar në Beograd (janar–qershor 1999)”;
• “Masakra e Suharekës” (2010), published in Serbian as “Masakr u Suvoj Reci” by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia;
• “Bekim Fehmiu – Odiseu i Kosovës” (Prizren, 2015; expanded edition 2021), a monograph on the actor Bekim Fehmiu;
• “Më quajnë Bekim Fehmiu” (Tirana, 2022), a short illustrated biography of the actor.

As a translator he has translated, among other works, the two volumes of the “Albanian–Serbian Dialogue” (1997 and 1998), Milenko Marković’s book “From Autonomy to Self-Determination” (1998), and collective volumes published in Belgrade and Sarajevo. According to one source, a book on the ethics of news reporting was also in preparation.

In early 2020, media reported that he was making a documentary film about Bekim Fehmiu. The body of his books was presented on 29 October 2024 at South East European University in Tetovo, in the “Max van der Stoel” library, with the participation of Rector Abdylmenaf Bexheti and the journalists Xhelal Neziri and Bardhyl Zajmi. The initiator of the promotion was the journalist Selajdin Xhezari. He has also presented his books at the “Ulqini” library in Ulcinj.

Media Allegations and Denials

A particular period in the life of Fahri Musliu was marked by campaigns in parts of the media. By his account, it began in 2010, when the Belgrade weekly “Tabloid” of Milovan Brkić published an excerpt from his diary along with a call for the war crimes prosecutor to pursue him. Musliu maintained that the passages were taken out of context, as the text concerned a conversation with a prisoner in a military prison.

Later, in “Tabloid” and then in 2014 on the Croatian portal Dnevno.hr, claims were published that he was the biological father of Aleksandar Vučić. Some outlets in Kosovo and Metohija, Albania and Macedonia carried those claims. Musliu publicly called them slander and sought protection. According to him, the Kosovo Press Council did not consider that he had been harmed. No confirmed evidence has been presented for the claim. In a public appearance in 2023, Vučić stated that his father’s name is Anđelko Vučić. According to Musliu, Vučić was born in 1970, when he was serving his military service.

In an interview with a Belgrade outlet, Musliu said that these campaigns hit him hard and that his grandchildren were subjected to provocations at school.

Return to Prizren and Political Involvement

After retiring, Musliu lived between Prizren and Belgrade and occasionally wrote for the daily Koha Ditore and for Al Jazeera. According to a 2017 report, retirement did not suit him, because he liked debate and polemics.

In May 2017 his name appeared on the initiating council of the Prizren branch of the new political party Alternativa, led by Gjakova Mayor Mimoza Kusari-Lila and MP Ilir Deda. At the parliamentary elections on 11 June 2017, the party ran in a coalition with the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AKR). Musliu was not on the candidate list, but he saw the party as a space for his ideas, including cooperation among all communities in Kosovo and Metohija within a single structure. He brought representatives of the Bosniak, Turkish and Roma communities onto the council in Prizren.

He also said that Kosovo and Metohija has been “sliding toward the bottom” since the declaration of independence in 2008, and criticized the state of journalism in Kosovo and Metohija, which in his view had become less and less professional. According to Kosovo Online, he once proposed that the office of president in Kosovo and Metohija be held by the Serbian politician Rada Trajković, which drew a series of comments.

Personal Life

Fahri Musliu is married and has four daughters. One of them, Valbona, was in Prizren with the family during the 1999 bombing, and their correspondence is published in the diary. His oldest child was born in 1972, before he left for Belgrade. According to a 2017 report, one of his daughters completed a master’s degree in psychology. He lives in Prizren, where he often spends time with friends in the city center.

Because of the closeness of the two cities, he often traveled to Belgrade, where he had many friends and associates from public life. A photograph from 2008 shows him with the Serbian historian Latinka Perović. He himself has said that his time in Belgrade was the best period of his life.

Interesting Facts

• As he tells it, he wrote his first news item in pencil in a notebook as a secondary school student, and Rilindja published it.
• In 1999 he stayed in Belgrade despite threats and offers from embassies to evacuate him.
• He worked at the city sanitation company and at Infostan while studying journalism.
• He is one of the founders of the European Movement in Serbia, as well as a co-founder of the Forum for Ethnic Relations and the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia.
• Besides Albanian, he also writes in Serbian, and some of his books have been published in English.

Awards and Recognition

According to available sources, Fahri Musliu won the annual award for best journalist of Rilindja for 1987. No other awards or honors could be reliably confirmed from the sources reviewed.

Legacy and Influence

The legacy of Fahri Musliu is tied to his role as an intermediary between two publics in a period when relations were at their most strained. As an Albanian journalist in Belgrade, he reported in Albanian, often close to the centers of political power, on events that shaped Kosovo and Metohija and Serbia.

His books, especially the 1999 diary, are useful to historians and journalists because, as he said himself at a book presentation, they are based on facts and documents. In addition, as the author of the monograph on Bekim Fehmiu, he contributed to preserving the memory of one of the best-known actors of Yugoslav cinema.