Andrew Strong of East Hampton Dies December 11

Andrew Strong of East Hampton, a father who found his greatest contentment raising his three children, a husband married to his best friend and soulmate, a beloved friend, and a lawyer who fought for justice, human rights, and freedom, died on December 11, in the Hague, after suffering a heart attack. He was 43.

Strong’s sudden and untimely death has left family, friends, and colleagues all over the world shocked and devastated. His dazzling but cruelly foreshortened career was widely respected in the international-law community, defined by his work to establish and defend a peaceful, prosperous, and independent Kosovo. Although he grew up outside Chicago, after visiting Kosovo as a young law student, he fell in love with its culture and people, drawn to their bravery, loyalty, and sacrifice. He dropped out of law school and moved to Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, in 2005, to join the defense team of Ramush Haradinaj, a leader of the former Kosovo Liberation Army, which, from 1998 through 1999, fought Serbia in a brutal war to defend the Kosovar people and gain independence. (He returned to finish his law degree at Northwestern University in 2010). Over the course of the next decade, he lived in Kosovo intermittently, learned the language, and became a leading authority on the Kosovo-Serbia conflict. He defended Haradinaj in two separate trials, which took place in the international war courts in the Hague. In both, his team won successful judgments — Haradinaj’s acquittal.

“He was a tremendous human-rights activist,” Haradinaj wrote, the day after Strong’s death. Later that night, Haradinaj, who also has twice served as Kosovo’s prime minister, led a large group of mourners to honor Strong in a candle-lighting vigil, convened in Pristina’s central square. “Andrew, for all of us, has represented idealism, loyalty, and a tireless individual who fights for truth,” another Kosovar colleague wrote, concluding that he “deserves the title: defensive lawyer of the Kosovo Liberation Army.” The Kosovar government is planning to name a street after him in Pristina.

After years spent abroad, Strong landed on the shores of the East End with his best friend and the love of his life, Rachael Faraone, who had grown up in East Hampton, and whom he had met on his first day at Middlebury College (when she showed up to the wrong freshman seminar) in 1998. They had immediately bonded over so much — their shared sense of humor, athleticism, even a knowledge of the same obscure folks songs. Both were adventurous, and for many years they loved and supported each other from afar as they pursued passions in different parts of the world. They became a couple in 2012, and in 2013, they moved to East Hampton and started a family.

They settled just off Three Mile Harbor, in a peaceful, light-filled house, where all three of their children — Henry, 9, Max, 7, and Ella, 5 — were born. Andrew was a doting, enamored father who delighted his children, just as he did his friends and colleagues, with his playfulness, jokes, and many talents, making everything they did fun. He also showed the same dedication to service and justice in the East End community that had distinguished his career overseas. He bridged his two chosen homes by starting a joint business venture, named the Illyrian Press, importing organic, single-origin Albanian olive oil with his friend, Alban Rafuna, whose family Strong had lived with in Kosovo. Rafuna oversaw the olive grove and production in Albania, Rachael designed the labels, and they began selling bottles in local shops across the Hamptons. In June, they won the gold award at the New York-International Olive Oil Competition.

Strong also ran a small community law practice, and served as the first general counsel for OLA of Eastern Long Island, during a particularly difficult period of heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. In 2021, he ran for East Hampton Town Justice, winning the Democratic primary, and losing the general election by only a handful of votes.

Andrew Tompkins Strong arrived to this world on January 14, 1980, in Geneva Community Hospital, in Illinois. He already possessed the broad shoulders that would physically distinguish him in the years ahead, and — as he soon revealed to his parents — a tenacious, kind, and joyful nature. He started watching baseball doubleheaders at age 3, with all of his player cards spread out on the floor in front of him, later becoming a serious player himself, pitching a perfect game on a state all-star team. Growing up, he made good friends everywhere he went, and, as he would say, his friends made him into the person he was.

A dedicated learner and endlessly curious, Strong was exceptional at sharing his wide-ranging interests with others, from the sandbox to school to sports. He was a hard worker, diligently practicing anything he cared about, always trying to be better. He was in awe of his big brother, and was constantly inventing wacky games with his little sister. (Or they were pranking each other.) He would stay close to and supportive of them always, making a habit of popping up in places unannounced at just the right time, like when his sister was struggling to find a place to live in Paris, and he happened to show up, then helped her secure an apartment. He made his parents deeply happy and proud, with his gap-toothed, unforgettable smile, his openness, his modesty.

In high school, he showed an early passion for law and geopolitics as a member of model U.N., and as a recruit to the statewide American Legion oratorical competition, in which he argued the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment, and won second place. He was active in his Presbyterian church youth group, joining its annual, week-long trips, where he discovered that service was a way to learn about the wider world, and to forge connections with other people, no matter their differences. He would become a true humanitarian, who rejoiced in others’ victories, which, in turn, bolstered him.

Every summer, his family spent time on a farm in Vermont. Strong and his older brother Reid would explore the meadows and woods, building forts, playing make-believe, swimming in a pond, riding horses with their grandmother, picking berries, driving a go-cart. This early freedom to roam the semi-wild land was magic, and established a deep appreciation of nature. His love of the farm was one reason he decided to attend Middlebury, in Vermont, where he studied history, chronicled the rise of organic farming in the state in his senior thesis, and was a lead singer (and notorious dancer) in a raucous punk band named Skama Sutra. Music was another one of his great passions. He sang in his church choir as a kid, and learned to play traditional finger picking guitar and claw hammer banjo from his father. He played piano, too, and wrote and recorded songs. After knowing Rachael for 21 years, he surprised her one day, when, by chance, he came across a saxophone (his instrument in high school band), picked it up, and started to play.

A polymath, a raconteur, and a teacher, Strong made his friends and colleagues feel so included in his success that they couldn’t help but enjoy his boundless talents. He was the rare individual who was at home in the world, but just as content to stay home, where he was always surrounded by a happy mayhem of domestic DIY projects. He delighted in worms and composting. (While he was in law school, he once wrote, “Ordered 1000 worms in the mail. They arrived and I love them!!”) He kept bees, cultivated vegetable gardens, grew mushrooms on birch bark, drove a tractor, and made soap, candles, and blueberry jelly. He was in the middle of writing a children’s book.

He shared his love of sport, the sheer delight of being alive in a body, with his kids, playing basketball, running, biking, and coaching his son’s soccer team. (In his 20s, he completed two marathons, in Chicago and Istanbul.) He was a staunch Arsenal Football Club fan, and made watching matches a family tradition, dramatically narrating each player’s story. He was always moved to tears by the famous Liverpool F.C. song, “You Never Walk Alone.”

In 2022, when a trial concerning new charges against several former KLA leaders began, Strong moved back to the Hague, and joined his former legal team, defending another KLA leader, Kadri Veseli. But this time he brought his wife and the kids, making them breakfast and lunch every day before court, biking with them to school. According to one close colleague, he brought energy and exacting clarity to the work every day. He was the only person who had read the mountains of evidence, and knew it all backwards. But, she said, he was also endlessly entertaining, keeping spirits high. “He made us laugh so much.”

Strong could make anyone laugh. This will be his legacy: his generosity of spirit, gift for friendship, his selfless inclination to always help others, the way he made everyone feel seen and made everything fun. As one friend said, “You just want more of him in your life.”

Apart from his immediate family, survivors include his parents, Howard and Linda Strong, of Geneva, Illinois; his brother and sister-in-law, Reid and Anthea Strong, of South Orange, New Jersey; his sister Josie Strong, of Paris, France; his mother-in-law Kathleen Cunningham, of East Hampton; his father-in-law Dan Faraone and wife Kay Zegel; his brother and sister-in-law, Ben Faraone and Chandra Elmendorf, all of Maine; his sister and brother-in-law Sara and Peter Topping, of Southampton; and his six nieces and nephews: Milo, Esme, Ida, Tanner, Wyatt, and Gardiner.

On December 21, there will be a wake at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home, in Sag Harbor. On January 2, there will be a service at Fox Valley Presbyterian Church, in Geneva, Illinois. For those who can, please send donations to Andrew’s family: gofund.me/278ed38d.