There is a large gap in the middle of the curriculum vitae of Ramush Haradinaj, the Prime Minister of Kosovo who resigned today after being charged with war crimes.

He was born on July 3 1968 in the tiny village of Gllogjan, in the Decan municipality of western Kosovo, readers of his official website will find under biographical notes. He finished high school in Gjakova and graduated in law from Kosovo's Pristina University.

He was commander of the Dukagjini operative zone of the Kosovo Liberation Army - which, loosely translated, means he was a guerrilla commander in the struggle of the Kosovo Albanians against their Serb overlords in 1998 and 1999. His base was in his home village.

What the website does not mention is that after leaving high school and doing his national service in the Yugoslav Army, Mr Haradinaj went abroad to Switzerland in 1989 for nearly a decade, ostensibly to study. He explains to interviewers that his sprawling, ethnic Albanian family was marked down as troublemakers by the Serb authorities, and that his efforts to study astronomy in Kosovo were effectively blocked.

While in Switzerland, he did a number of jobs to make ends meet, including acting as a security guard at rock concerts and as a nightclub bouncer.

He also stayed in touch with the resistance movement in Kosovo, and in 1998 he returned to his native land for good when his ethnic compatriots were engaged in their struggle against the Serbs. Two of his brothers were killed in the guerrilla warfare, which died down after Nato launched airstrikes on Serbia in June 1999.

Mr Haradinaj served with the Kosovo Protection Corps, then laid down his weapons and founded a political party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, in May 2000. His Kosovo law degree was obtained after his time as a guerrilla leader.

Charming, efficient and energetic, with a good command of English and French, his chance arrived when his party came third in last October's national elections in Kosovo, and was invited to form a coalition government with the party of the Kosovo President, Ibrahim Rugova.

He has won praise from western leaders during his brief time in power. But he is also a colourful character who has seemed unable to steer clear of trouble. He got into a brawl with a Russian peacekeeper. Four years ago, he and his brother were injured in a dispute that involved several of his friends and family members and a rival Albanian clan, the Musaj family. Mr Haradinaj needed treatment in an American army hospital in Germany.

The allegations of involvement in war crimes have dogged him throughout his political career. The bodies of 39 people were found near Gllogjan in September 1998, some of them bearing evidence of having been tied up and tortured. Some were Serbs, the only non-Albanians in the neighbouring village of Dubrava. No details of the charges against him have yet been published.

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