“PROJECTS SHOULD UNITE, NOT DIVIDE”: Trump’s son-in-law gave up on building a hotel on the site of the General Staff!

Jared Kushner withdrew from a planned project to build a Trump hotel in Belgrade after the project sparked protests and an indictment against a high-ranking Serbian politician, the Wall Street Journal writes today.

“Since meaningful projects should unite, not divide, and out of respect for the people of Serbia and the City of Belgrade, we are withdrawing our application and stepping away at this time,” said a spokesperson for Kushner’s private investment firm, “Affinity Partners.”

Let us recall that today the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime filed an indictment proposal against Minister Nikola Selaković and three others in the General Staff case.

As the Wall Street Journal writes, it marked “an abrupt end to an increasingly controversial project that Mr. Kushner, now both a public figure and a deal broker, had worked on for more than two years.”

The son-in-law of President Donald Trump has, the newspaper reminds, taken on great geopolitical responsibility, volunteering to help lead American negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, following a similar role in Gaza.

Simultaneously, he runs Affinity Partners, a $4.8 billion private equity firm that invests globally and is mostly financed by Middle East governments. That firm is part of a record $55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts and is helping to finance Paramount’s “hostile bid” for Warner Bros.

“Crisis in Serbia began – with forgery”

The crisis with the project in Serbia began when the administration of President Aleksandar Vučić attempted to remove the cultural heritage protection from the former General Staff military complex, which he intended to transfer to Kushner’s company.

The prosecutor launched a process, arresting one official for alleged document forgery and initiating a broader investigation, the Wall Street Journal recalls.

In response, the ruling party circumvented the investigation by adopting two fast-track measures in parliament (lex specialis), revoking protected status from the location and numerous other old buildings.

Opponents condemned the move as unconstitutional and corrupt, saying that Vučić and the Government of Serbia were trying to gain favor with the US, the American daily adds.

As they state, the Balkan country – historically close to Moscow, but with many ties to Western Europe – has much that it wants from the Trump administration, such as the lifting of sanctions on its only oil refinery.

“You call it an investment, we call it high treason,” said Marinika Tepić, an opposition member of parliament. Student demonstrators took to the streets in the thousands, and many vowed to occupy the location if bulldozers arrived, the portal recalls.

On Monday morning, the special prosecutor announced that he had filed an indictment against Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković and three other individuals for abuse of office and falsification of documents in connection with the project.

A spokesperson for the Serbian government was not available for comment.

In recent days, Vučić has promised to pardon all officials involved in the case and has stepped up his rhetoric against the prosecutor’s office, which they write is a semi-independent unit focused on organized crime.

Vučić said that the agreement has nothing to do with politics but is about reconstructing an eyesore in the city center that the government had been trying to reconstruct for years.

Indictment Proposal Filed

The Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime today filed an indictment proposal against Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković, Secretary of the Ministry of Culture Slavica Jelača, acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments Goran Vasić, and acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade Aleksandar Ivanović, in connection with illegalities during the removal of the cultural property status from the “General Staff” buildings, the statement said.

The suspects, they add, are charged with having committed two criminal offenses: abuse of official position from Article 359 paragraph 1 and falsification of an official document from Article 357 paragraph 2 in connection with paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code (CC).

Selaković was questioned as a suspect at the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime on December 4, when he presented his defense.

After the hearing, Selaković made a series of accusations against the POOC (Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime) to reporters. In his address, he called the Prosecutor’s Office an “autoimmune disease,” stressing that it is a “blockader criminal gang that has usurped a part of the state and a part of the state system.”