BELGRADE, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Serbia’s prosecutor on Monday filed an indictment against a minister over his role in removing the protected status as a site of cultural significance to allow for the development of a luxury compound by an investment company set up by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump.
U.S.-based Affinity Global Development aims to build a hotel, apartments, shops and offices on the site of the former Yugoslav army headquarters after signing a 99-year lease for it with the Serbian government last year.
The plans have prompted protests by Serbs who say the site should be preserved as a monument to Yugoslav-era modernist architecture and as a tribute to those who died when it was damaged in a 1999 NATO bombing campaign.
Last month parliament passed a set of laws that could speed up the project and enable faster procedures for construction permits, a move that prompted fresh protests.
In a statement on Monday the office of the public prosecutor for organised crime said it had filed an indictment against the minister of culture, Nikola Selakovic, a ministry official and the head of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments.
The three are accused in connection with “illegalities when removing a status of cultural heritage site from the army headquarters buildings,” the public prosecutor said.
They are accused of abuse of official position and falsification of an official document, the statement said.
The court must now decide whether to approve the indictment – a process that could take months.
Selakovic, who is a close ally of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, has denied wrongdoing.
Despite protests, the Serbian government last November stripped the buildings of their protected cultural heritage status. Kushner set up Affinity Global Development after stepping down from his job as a White House aide in 2021. There is no indication of any wrongdoing by Kushner or Affinity in the latest case.
The indictment comes at a turbulent time in Serbia, as Vucic has faced a year of large-scale protests triggered by the collapse of a station roof in November 2024 that killed 16 people.
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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