Serbian minister on trial for real estate project of Trump's son-in-law. How did it get to the trial?
Nikola Selakovic upon arrival at the court Photo: Darko Vojinovic / AP / Profimedia
On Wednesday, a trial began in Belgrade in which the Minister of Culture, Nikola Selakovic, and three other defendants are being tried for alleged illegalities in the approval of a hotel project by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of American President Donald Trump, reports AFP, taken over by Agerpres.
Selakovic waived his ministerial immunity, thus allowing the judicial proceedings against him to proceed. He was awaited in front of the court by dozens of demonstrators who booed him.
The prosecutor's office for combating organized crime accuses the minister and the other three defendants of abuse of power and falsification of official documents, by which the site targeted by Kushner was removed from the cultural heritage.
None of the accused admitted their guilt. Selakovic even declared in front of the court: “I don't understand what crime I am accused of.” He is the first serving minister to be tried in Serbia in a criminal case in recent decades.
The luxury hotel Kushner wanted to build
The controversial project, suspended last May, calls for the demolition of the headquarters in central Belgrade of the former Yugoslav Army General Staff to make way for a luxury hotel to be built by Kushner. Allegations have emerged that the removal of the former headquarters' “protected building” status is based on a forged document.
Kushner's firm Affinity Partners signed a 99-year concession contract with the Serbian government in 2024 to redevelop the said site. Trump's son-in-law was received several times by the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.
A spokesman for Affinity stated that “large-scale projects should unite, not divide, and out of respect for the Serbian people and the city of Belgrade, we are withdrawing our candidacy and withdrawing from the project for the time being.”
The subject is sensitive in Serbia, AFP explains: some buildings bombed several times in 1999, in the NATO air campaign led by the United States to force an end to the war in Kosovo, are considered architecturally unique examples of brutalism.
Vucic and the ministers from Belgrade have criticized the prosecutor's office several times in relation to that file and the one related to the November 2024 collapse of the roof of the station in Novi Sad, resulting in 16 deaths. Serbian public opinion is divided between supporters and opponents of the president.
