Serbia’s authoritarian leader personally intervened to “push through” an allegedly illegal plan to hand over a protected site in Belgrade for the construction of a Trump skyscraper, The Guardian has revealed exclusively.
Aleksandar Vučić convened a meeting with officials at the presidential offices to discuss the project, which led to indictments against senior members of his regime for abuse of office. The British newspaper describes the indictment as unprecedented.
The criminal proceedings are believed to be the first to emerge from the Trump family’s global campaign to profit from business dealings, which critics describe as a “pay-to-play” system in which everything — from sanctions relief to access to the most advanced chips — is available to those who financially enrich the US first family and its associates.
The alleged scheme to strip a historic building in the Serbian capital of its protected cultural heritage status casts a shadow over the elections scheduled for October 25, in which Vučić will seek to extend his 12 years in power amid a mass protest movement fueled by corruption within the government.
Vučić, a former head of nationalist propaganda under Slobodan Milošević, hosted US President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in Belgrade as they worked on plans for a $500 million hotel and residential skyscraper to expand their global real estate portfolio.
After indictments for abuse of office were issued last December, Kushner’s company announced that the project would not proceed “at this time.”
Vučić threatened retaliation, calling prosecutors “corrupt gangs” who had been “fabricating cases.”
“We have lost an extraordinary investment,” the Serbian president said. “I will personally ensure that everyone involved in causing this damage is held accountable.”
Among those indicted for abuse of office is Serbia’s minister of culture. However, a Guardian investigation based on interviews and leaked documents reveals that it was the Serbian president himself who led the first meeting at which the alleged scheme was discussed.
This key meeting is not mentioned in the indictment, raising questions about what information prosecutors are withholding and why.
Representatives of the Trump and Kushner families said they had played no role in removing the building’s protected status and that it would be “inaccurate” to claim the Belgrade project was part of a “pay-to-play” system.
Vučić did not respond to requests for comment. His decision to call snap elections means that a court hearing at which witnesses could reveal details of his alleged involvement will take place only after the vote.
A free 99-year lease
On February 6, 2024, Dubravka Đukanović, a Serbian conservation professor, arrived at a meeting in the presidential building, The Guardian reports, noting that she had served as director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments for three years.
The meeting concerned the General Staff building, the former headquarters of the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense in central Belgrade. This architectural landmark already held special significance when NATO forces bombed it in 1999 during an operation intended to force Slobodan Milošević to withdraw his forces from Kosovo. The bombing further deepened the building’s symbolic importance.
Vučić himself confirmed the building’s legally protected status as far back as 2016. Now, according to two people familiar with the meeting, the president told Đukanović that he wanted her to revoke that status. An unnamed “foreign investor” was interested in the site.
Under Serbian law, revoking the General Staff building’s protected status was not within Đukanović’s authority. Her institute would have had to request an expert assessment concluding that there were legitimate grounds for the building to lose its status as a protected cultural monument.
However, the president wanted it done. His tone toward Đukanović and another cultural heritage expert present at the meeting was unpleasant, Guardian sources said. He told them they were lazy and incompetent. The message was clear: do what I ask, or resign.
A possible explanation for Vučić’s forceful intervention emerged the following month, when an agreement between the Serbian government and Kushner’s real estate company was leaked to the public.
Kushner, who is married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was an influential White House adviser during his father-in-law’s first term. After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Kushner turned his attention to his investment fund.
By early 2024, Trump was on track to secure the Republican presidential nomination and was considered the favorite in the upcoming election. If Trump returned to the White House, Kushner would once again become one of the most influential people in the world.
The leaked agreement indicated that the Serbian authorities had granted Kushner’s company a rent-free 99-year lease on the General Staff site.
Kushner, whose spokesperson said the company had been considering the project since 2021, posted an image of the proposed development on X and said he was “excited.”
The news was not universally welcomed in Belgrade.
“Serbia is not a buffet, and Vučić is not a waiter,” said Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta, the environmental activist who exposed the agreement. “This is not his private property.”
Nevertheless, Vučić’s administration continued with the project and signed a contract dated May 13, 2024, obtained by The Guardian. Under the agreement, the Serbian authorities committed to revoking the site’s protected cultural heritage status “to the satisfaction” of Kushner’s company.
Do as ordered or resign
A week after the contract was signed, Đukanović was summoned to another meeting. The president was not present this time. The meeting was led by Finance Minister Siniša Mali, Vučić’s closest associate.
Mali asked Đukanović and Olivera Vučković, the Belgrade official responsible for cultural heritage protection, to revoke the General Staff site’s protected status, according to a summary of testimony the two women later gave prosecutors, which was included in the indictment. The document does not mention the earlier meeting with the president, but indicates that the issue had already been discussed.
“Mali asked them whether they had given it any thought,” the indictment states, “and whether they would initiate proceedings to revoke the building’s protected status.”
The women refused, “believing that the legal requirements for doing so had not been met.” Mali then told them that if that was their position, they should resign, repeating the ultimatum his boss had given them in February. Both women did so.
In her resignation letter, which The Guardian reviewed, Đukanović wrote that she could not agree to “inappropriate interventions that would permanently destroy all the values of the complex, which bears witness to the highest achievements of contemporary Serbian architecture and is of immeasurable importance for preserving enduring creative values, educating future generations and strengthening the cultural identity of the Serbian people.”
Speaking to Guardian journalists, Đukanović and Vučković confirmed that this account of events was accurate. Đukanović added: “I would prefer not to comment on this matter while court proceedings are ongoing.”
For months, little was heard about the General Staff project. In November, Trump defeated Kamala Harris and won a second presidential term. Ten days later, Vučić’s government announced that the General Staff site had been stripped of its protected cultural heritage status.
Family first
One of the first things Trump did after returning to the presidency was abandon a promise he had made during his first term — that his family’s company would not conduct business abroad while he was in office.
“The scale of corruption will be many times greater than what we saw during the first Trump administration,” warned Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University School of Law. According to her, Trump had made it significantly easier for those seeking to win his favor.
The family business officially remained under the control of his two eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric. In January 2025, four days after their father’s inauguration, Eric spoke about some new projects.
The Trump and Kushner families, two New York real estate dynasties connected by marriage, decided to launch their first joint venture: Jared Kushner’s hotel and tower in Belgrade would carry the Trump name.
“It will be fun to bring the family together around this project,” Eric told The New York Times. “Serbia is one of the fastest-growing countries in Europe, and we are incredibly excited to be there.”
Kushner, who traveled to Belgrade to meet the Serbian leader in what Vučić described as an “inspiring” meeting, added: “Our research showed that the Trump brand would be the best fit for this market.”
Demand for the brand surged worldwide during Trump’s second term, amid allegations that such business deals operated on a quid pro quo basis — favors in exchange for favors.
In Vietnam, Eric was welcomed with confetti at a groundbreaking ceremony for a £1.5 billion golf resort, for which permits had been issued unusually quickly. Trump subsequently halved tariffs on Vietnamese goods. The Saudis invested huge sums in Kushner’s investment fund, after which plans emerged for a Trump Plaza in Jeddah. Trump subsequently agreed to sell new American fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.
A company owned by a powerful cryptocurrency investor and prominent representatives of the United Arab Emirates struck a lucrative deal with World Liberty Financial, a digital currency company founded by Donald Jr. and Eric. Trump granted the cryptocurrency investor a pardon, while the UAE gained access to American chips whose exports are restricted.
Asked last year about such business dealings, Kushner, who has since become a presidential envoy for Russia, Israel and other countries, said: “What people call a conflict of interest … I call experience and relationships of trust that we have around the world.”
Those who establish “relationships of trust” with the Trumps, even when there is no obvious direct exchange of favors, gain something less tangible but perhaps even more valuable: an aura of friendship with a president willing to use the power of a superpower to help leaders of smaller countries advance — or push them toward ruin.
Vučić has much in common with Trump. Both are close to Vladimir Putin and disdain the European Union — in Vučić’s case, despite Serbia having applied for EU membership.
Their shared disdain for NATO may explain why the only part of the General Staff complex slated for preservation in the redevelopment plan was a monument dedicated to the alliance’s “aggression” against Serbia.
Beyond that, Vučić would stand to gain considerably from American support, particularly regarding the fate of Kosovo, which he claims remains part of Serbia.
Shortly after his father returned to power, Donald Trump Jr. traveled to Belgrade. Vučić said that during their meeting he had “emphasized the importance of Serbia-US economic and political relations, as well as the importance of strategic cooperation between the two countries and joint projects in the years to come.” When Donald Jr. returned the following month, Vučić welcomed him with roast pork.
For Vučić, support from the Trump family arrived at a crucial moment. Just days before his administration revoked protection for the General Staff complex, the collapse of a canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people, triggered a wave of anti-corruption protests. The student organizers’ slogan became “Serbia or the Mafia.”
Trump Jr.’s visit took place ahead of the largest protest in Serbian history. He invited Vučić to appear on his Triggered podcast and said that the Serbian leader’s opponents were “weaponizing” the Novi Sad tragedy, just as Trump’s opponents had, in his view, exploited the disorder at the Capitol following his 2020 election defeat.
However, the demonstrators did not give up. They continued protesting and began gathering against the construction of the Trump Tower as well.
In May 2025, Vučić traveled to the United States, hoping to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida. He managed to meet Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer, who had suffered a political and professional downfall, but not the president himself. State media reported that Vučić’s “illness” was the reason.
As soon as Vučić returned home, police arrested Goran Vasić, who had been appointed head of the cultural heritage protection institute after Dubravka Đukanović resigned. Prosecutors said Vasić had falsified an expert assessment supporting the removal of the General Staff building’s protected status.
Further arrests followed. In December 2025, Vučić’s minister of culture was indicted for abuse of office over his alleged role in the General Staff case. Within days, Kushner’s company announced that it was abandoning the project.
Coup or cover-up?
Vučić’s threat of retaliation was not an empty one.
His allies attacked Đukanović, claiming she had tried to enrich herself while heading the cultural heritage protection institution. Her deputy, who was visited by the state security service after condemning the removal of the General Staff building’s protected status on television, was accused of other, unrelated offenses. Serbia’s professional association of conservators said the move had been made with the “obvious aim of discrediting her.”
Both women are expected to testify in the criminal proceedings.
For the special organized crime prosecution department that brought the indictments, the case represents a turning point. No sitting minister in Serbia had ever been indicted before.
Vučić accuses the prosecutors of preparing a coup. Others, however, fear that the prosecutors are not going far enough. Those concerns intensified when Nikola Selaković, the indicted culture minister, revealed during a court appearance in April that while police were searching his ministry, he had been sitting in his office drinking plum brandy and smoking cigarettes with Mladen Nenadić, head of the organized crime prosecution department.
A spokesperson for the prosecution said there had been no “discussion of the course of the proceedings.”
“In everything that happened in connection with the potential investments, I saw an opportunity for our country and its citizens,” Selaković said. He faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Vučić has not been indicted. Neither has his close associate Siniša Mali. Both deny any wrongdoing.
The indictment cites evidence obtained from witnesses who attended the meeting with Vučić in February 2024, but the meeting itself is not mentioned. This raises questions about the apparent decision to omit what could be a crucial link in reconstructing the events.
A spokesperson for the organized crime prosecution department said the prosecution had evidence concerning Vučić’s February 2024 meeting with representatives of cultural heritage protection institutions. In addition to the proceedings against those already indicted, the prosecution is “conducting preliminary investigative activities in this case to establish possible criminal liability on the part of other individuals,” the spokesperson added.
Vučić has stepped down from the presidency and cannot seek another term, but is expected to retain control over the administration if he is elected prime minister on October 25.
In one of his final acts as president, he pardoned 49 people. Some have not been identified, so it is unclear whether any of those indicted in the General Staff case are among them.
The White House referred questions to the Trump family’s company. A representative said: “The Trump Organization has no plans to develop any project in Belgrade, has never at any point participated in discussions or negotiations to purchase any site in Belgrade, and denies any involvement in the alleged cases, as well as any knowledge of them.”
A spokesperson for Jared Kushner said: “The claim that Jared Kushner sought to pursue a project in Belgrade as part of any political deal or ‘pay-to-play’ scheme is categorically false.”
Instead, the spokesperson said, the project represented “an opportunity to transform a site associated with a painful chapter in Serbian history into a symbol of healing and reconciliation, with significant private investment, new jobs and economic opportunities for Belgrade.”
The spokesperson added: “Jared had no role in the Serbian government’s internal processes concerning the site’s protected status.”
Despite all Vučić’s problems, the story of the Trump Tower in Belgrade does not appear to have deterred others from doing business with the US president’s family.
Trump continues to hold ownership stakes in dozens of his companies, although his sons formally manage them. In July, he released a financial report covering his first year back in the White House. According to the report, he earned $2 billion.
MORE TOPICS:
Source: Nova Foto: ATA Images
Add Serbian Times as your Google source