Serbia’s authoritarian ruler personally intervened to advance an allegedly illegal scheme to hand over a protected site in Belgrade for a Trump tower, the Guardian can reveal. Aleksandar Vučić summoned officials to a meeting at his presidential offices about the project, which has culminated in a landmark indictment of senior figures from his regime on charges of abuse of public office. The criminal case is believed to be the first resulting from the Trumps’ global moneymaking campaign, described by critics as a “pay to play” arrangement where everything from sanctions relief to cutting-edge chips is available to those who enrich the first family and their associates.
The alleged scheme to override the protected status of a historic building in the Serbian capital looms over an election scheduled for 25 October, when Vučić will seek to extend his 12 years in power in the face of a mass protest movement spurred by government corruption. A nationalist former propaganda chief under Slobodan Milošević, Vučić hosted the US president’s son Donald Trump Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner in Belgrade as they developed plans for a $500m hotel and residential tower to add to their global property portfolios. After the abuse of power charges were brought last December, Kushner’s company announced the project would not proceed “at this time”.
Vučić threatened reprisals, calling the prosecutors “corrupt gangs” who “fabricated cases”. But a Guardian investigation, drawing on interviews and leaked documents, reveals that the Serbian president himself led the initial meeting where the alleged scheme was discussed. This crucial meeting is not mentioned in the indictment, raising questions about what information the prosecutors are holding back and why.
Representatives of the Trumps and Kushner said they had no part in the removal of the building’s protected status and that it would be “false” to say the Belgrade project was part of a “pay to play” scheme. Vučić did not respond to requests for comment. His decision to call a snap election means that a hearing at which witnesses might reveal details of his involvement will not take place until after the vote.
On 6 February 2024, Dubravka Đukanović, a Serbian conservation professor in her 60s, arrived for a meeting at the presidency, a domed former royal palace. For three years, she had been the director of the country’s institute for the protection of cultural monuments. The topic was the General Staff building, the former Yugoslav ministry of defence in central Belgrade.
The building, an architectural gem seen as an emblem of resistance to the Nazis, was already cherished when Nato forces bombed it in 1999 during its campaign to force Milošević to withdraw from Kosovo, deepening its resonance. Vučić himself had reaffirmed the General Staff building’s legally protected status in 2016. Now, the president said he wanted Đukanović to rescind it, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
