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Florin Krasniqi (pronounced
Kras-nee-chi)
Owner of Triangle General Contractors in Brooklyn. He immigrated
to the United States from Kosovo on Christmas Eve 1988 by sneaking
across the Mexican border in the trunk of a Cadillac. He would
eventually raise $30 million for the Kosovo Liberation Army and
smuggle hundreds of high-powered American sniper rifles to the
guerrillas. He is currently working on a multi-million dollar
hydroelectric power plant in Kosovo.
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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Linda Belfort and Haxhi Dervisholli
Linda is Florin’s assistant at Triangle General
Contractors. Linda kept the business running while Florin became
increasingly focused on the KLA. Eventually, she chipped in to
help him wage war, keeping track of KLA donations, weapons shipments,
satellite telephone bills and death tolls. She is now part owner
of the business.
Haxhi, who had only been in the United States for a couple of
years, was working for Florin at Triangle General Contractors
when he returned to Albania in 1999 to fight for the KLA during
the NATO bombing. A Serb shell exploded next to his position and
the shrapnel sliced off his leg from the knee down. He was carried
away by his fellow fighters and transferred to a military hospital
in a helicopter chartered by television journalist Geraldo Rivera.
A doctor in Brooklyn, who saw Rivera's report of the incident
on television, volunteered to fit Haxhi with a prosthetic leg,
free of cost. Haxhi works part of the year for Florin at Triangle
and spends the rest of the year in Kosovo, where he works with
a veterans association to aid other soldiers who lost limbs in
combat.
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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Adrian Krasniqi
Florin’s “cousin” — actually,
his nephew, though the two were only eight years apart. Adrian
was an engineering student in Prishtina in 1996 when he lost faith
in Kosovo’s pacifist government and joined a cell of the
then-underground KLA. He headed up the rebels’ weapons-smuggling
operation and was the first guerrilla to die in a KLA uniform.
Adrian Krasniqi and his fiancée,
Merita Ahmeti
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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Xhevdet Krasniqi (pronounced Jev-det)
Florin’s first cousin. Xhevet helped Adrian
smuggle weapons into Kosovo by building a secret compartment underneath
the flatbed of his dump truck, which he would load with wet sand.
When he came upon Serb police checkpoints, he would say that he
had taken the sand from the river to make cement.
Xhevdet Krasniqi inspecting bullets for the
KLA’s .50-caliber American sniper rifles; photo courtesy of Florin
Krasniqi
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Muharrem Krasniqi
Florin’s father. A teacher and poet, Muharrem
was an avowed pacifist and initially opposed the creation of the
KLA. He continued to write throughout the war, and even published
a children’s book after he was expelled from his home and
living as a refugee in Albania. He has since returned to Vranoc,
where he lives in the newly-rebuilt Krasniqi house.
Muharrem Krasniqi outside the battle-scarred
family home in Kosovo
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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Agim Krasniqi
Florin’s long-lost “uncle” in
Albania. Agim is actually Florin’s second cousins, but because
he is almost 20 years older than Florin refers to him as his uncle.
Agim helped Adrian with his weapons-smuggling operation, arranging
to purchase, store, and transport guns in Albania. Eventually,
he turned his family home in northern Albania into an arms depot
and KLA base. Agim still lives in Albania with his family.
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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Gezim Sejdiaj (pronounced Se-dee-eye)
One of Adrian Krasniqi’s high school friends.
The two met while trying to organize a protest against Milosevic’s
initial crackdown in Kosovo in 1989. Gezim joined a secret cell
of the KLA with Adrian and later assisted in the weapons-smuggling
operation. He returned to school after the war and recently graduated
with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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 Qerim
Kelmendi (pronounced Chair-eem)
A chemistry student at Prishtina University and
long-time political activist. Qerim helped Adrian and Gezim organize
their student protest in 1989, and later recruited them to join
the KLA. He was jailed and tortured during Milosevic’s rule.
He runs an internet café and several restaurants in Peja.
Qerim Kelmendi (right) and Adrian Krasniqi
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 Joe
DioGuardi
A former congressman from Westchester, New York,
whose father descended from the Arberesh, a group of Albanians
that migrated to Italy several centuries ago. DioGuardi did not
find out that he was of Albanian origin until he was in his late
forties and already serving as a congressman. Once he was made
aware of the plight of “his people,” he made the Kosovo
cause his raison d’etre. He served for two terms, and after
being voted out of office in 1988 founded the Albanian American
Civic League, a lobby that has long been pressing for Kosovo’s
independence and was instrumental in getting Kosovo on Washington’s
foreign policy agenda.
Photo courtesy Joe DioGuardi
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 Blerim
Krasniqi
Another of Florin’s older brothers. Blerim,
a large-animal veterinarian, was the only son living in the Krasniqi’s
native Vranoc before the war began. Although he was initially
critical of the KLA’s efforts, he reluctantly chipped in
to help. His physical resemblance to Osama bin Laden would provoke
the FBI to take both Florin and his other U.S.-based brother,
Burim, into custody for questioning. After the war, Blerim oversaw
the rebuilding of the Krasniqi family home, where he still resides
with his family.
Blerim Krasniqi (left); photo courtesy of
Florin Krasniqi
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 Ilir
“Mergim” Konushevci (pronounced Ko-no-shev-see)
An electrician from a village in northern Kosovo who founded a
guerrilla cell in 1996 and helped conduct some of the early KLA
attacks. When Serb police were tipped off to his involvement,
Mergim fled to Albania to aid Adrian in the weapons-smuggling
operation. After Adrian’s death, Mergim took over the operation.
He was killed by bandits in a 1998 ambush in northern Albania.
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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 Ramush
Haradinaj (pronounced Har-a-deen-eye)
A carpenter who had been living in Switzerland,
Ramush sneaked into Kosovo across the Accursed Mountains with
Adrian as his guide in July 1997. He later became one of the KLA’s
top commanders. After the war, he established a political party
in Kosovo and launched an unsuccessful bid for Kosovo’s
presidency. His party, the Alliance of the Future, still wields
considerable influence in Kosovo. However, he is repeatedly dogged
by allegations of war crimes. The United Nations war crimes tribunal
in The Hague has confirmed that he is under investigation.
Photo courtesy of Florin Krasniqi
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 Giles
Pace
A mercenary who boasted of having fought in Vietnam,
Rhodesia and Bosnia, Pace turned up at the Rome airport and boarded
Florin’s flight to Albania. He offered his services to the
KLA, helping the guerrillas devise gun-running schemes and improvise
anti-tank weapons. Florin and others in the region say Pace was
working for U.S. intelligence, though that could not be confirmed.
Pace disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared when NATO began
its bombing campaign in March 1999. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Photo courtesy Giles Pace
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 Florim
Lajqi (pronounced Lie-chee) and Linda Muriqi (pronounced Mur-ee-chee)
Florim, an Albanian-American who immigrated to the
United States with his family when he was two years old, was a
senior at Manhattan’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice
in the spring of 1999. He dropped out to join the KLA after seeing
his grandfather on CNN amongst a throng of refugees fleeing across
Kosovo’s border into Albania. He recently applied for a
job at the FBI and is awaiting an answer.
Linda was 16 years old when she dropped out of Columbus High School
in the Bronx to join the KLA. Rebel commanders assured her parents
that Linda would be kept away from the front line, working on
logistics. Once there, however, she talked her way into combat.
After the war, she got a job working as a bodyguard for Ibrahim
Rugova, Kosovo’s pacifist leader who was re-elected president.
Linda Muriqi (left) and Florim Lajqi; photo
courtesy of Florian Krasniqi
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