BELGRADE -- It was supposed to be a splashy and posh addition to the Belgrade skyline: a $500 million luxury hotel and residential complex built on the damaged Defense Ministry office that was bombed by NATO jets in 1999s.
The man leading the effort was none other than Jared Kushner, who is married to a daughter of US President Donald Trump, for whom the new hotel complex would be named -- the first such Trump complex in Europe.
The project has now screeched to a halt after a scandalous revelation involving the historic designation of the site-- and the decision to undo the designation last year.
Serbian prosecutors on May 14 announced that the cultural official in charge of the site's historic designation had forged a key document and had been arrested. Goran Vasic, the acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, admitted he had fabricated an expert's opinion.
"Vasic forged a proposal for a decision to revoke the status of cultural property," prosecutors said in a statement.
It's unclear if the project is dead in the water or merely paused pending resolution of the historical designation.
But for preservationists who believe the damaged site merits something more appropriate than a Trump Tower hotel, it's a small victory.
"It's too early to celebrate," Miljan Salata, an architect who is a member of the group defending the site's historic status, told RFE/RL. "I believe this is the result of strong public pressure. There's a broad front fighting to preserve the [building]."
Kushner's company Affinity Global Development did not respond to RFE/RL's inquiry about whether the arrest affects the project.
However, the company told The New York Times that they learned about the acting director's arrest from the media and that the project's fate is now in question.
The company would "assess the situation and determine next steps," it said.
The Serbian government did not respond to RFE/RL's inquiries, nor did President Aleksandr Vucic, who has hosted Trump's son Donald Jr. twice in the last two months.
'It's Too Early To Celebrate'
The Kushner-led project in Belgrade -- Trump International Hotel -- was announced to great fanfare in March 2024. Along with another luxury development on Albania's Adriatic coastline, it was a major investment into the Balkans and the first Trump-branded development in all of Europe.
Married to Trump's elder daughter, Ivanka, Kushner served as an White House adviser during Trump's first term in office. For most of his professional career he has worked as a real estate developer for his family company.
In Serbia, the proposed development centered on a pair of jagged unoccupied brick structures in the center of Belgrade, the former General Staff headquarters for the army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The site was bombed by NATO jets in the spring of 1999 as part of a campaign to stop Serbian forces attacking parts of Kosovo, which was still part of the country.
Under terms of the deal, the land at the site would be leased to Kushner's company for 99 years.
While some nearby buildings have been redeveloped amid a boom in Belgrade's real estate market, the two damaged structures have remained, designated as historical structures and granted protected status.
The structures were embraced by preservationists in part because they were designed by modernist architect Nikola Dobrovic and were his own project in Serbia.
Last November, the Serbian government decided to strip the buildings of their cultural heritage designation, paving the way for Kushner's company to move forward with developing a hotel complex.
That decision was based largely on Vasic, who had been appointed head of the cultural protection institute five months earlier after the institute's then director refused to lift the cultural designation for the site.
After the decision, institute employees complained the process violated legal procedures.
In the wake of the forgery admission, activists and lawyers called on the Serbian government to annul not only the decision stripping the site of its protected status but the entire development project.
"We expect the government, in light of these developments and the allegations of document forgery, to urgently review the decision to revoke protection for this exceptional cultural asset," said Vesna Marjanovic, who heads a cultural heritage preservation organization called Europa Nostra Serbia.
Jovan Rajic, a lawyer and chairman the Regulatory Institute for Renewable Energy and the Environment, called on the government to halt the development project for now.
"All negotiations with the investor must be immediately suspended until competent authorities make a ruling," Rajic said.
