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By:
The Guardian
- 15 October 2026 21:57
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Serbia's authoritarian ruler personally intervened to push forward an allegedly illegal scheme aimed at handing over a protected site in Belgrade to a Trump Tower project, The Guardian reveals.
Aleksandar Vučić summoned officials to a meeting at the presidency offices to discuss the project, which has ended with the filing of an indictment against senior figures in his regime, on charges of abuse of official position.
This criminal case is believed to be the first to stem from the Trump family's global money-making campaign, which critics describe as a "pay-to-win" arrangement, where everything from sanctions relief to the most advanced chips are available to those who enrich the American first family and its associates.
The alleged scheme to bypass the protected status of a historic building in the Serbian capital weighs heavily on elections scheduled for October 25, in which Vučić will seek to extend his 12-year rule in the face of a massive protest movement fueled by government corruption.
Nationalist Vucic, a former propaganda chief under Slobodan Milosevic, hosted the US president's son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in Belgrade as they developed plans for a $500 million hotel and residential complex that would add to their global real estate portfolios.
After allegations of abuse of power were raised in December last year, Kushner’s company announced that the project would not proceed “for the time being.” Vučić threatened retaliation, calling prosecutors “corrupt gangs” who “fabricated cases.”
“We have lost an extraordinary investment,” said Vučić, then president of Serbia. “I will personally ensure that all those who participated in causing this damage are held accountable.”
Vučić’s culture minister is among those charged with abuse of office. However, an investigation by The Guardian, based on interviews and leaked documents, reveals that Vučić himself chaired the initial meeting where the alleged scheme was discussed. This crucial meeting is not mentioned in the indictment, raising questions about what information prosecutors are keeping secret and why.
Representatives for the Trump and Kushner families said they had no role in removing the building's protected status and that it would be "untrue" to say that the Belgrade project was part of a "pay-to-benefit" scheme.
Vučić did not respond to requests for comment. His decision to call early elections means that the court hearing, in which witnesses could reveal details about his involvement, will not be held until after the vote.
Rent free for 99 years
On February 6, 2024, Dubravka Djukanovic, a professor in her sixties, arrived for a meeting at the presidency, a domed former royal palace. For three years, she had been the director of the State Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments.
The topic of the meeting was the General Staff building, the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense in the center of Belgrade. The building, an architectural masterpiece considered a symbol of resistance to the Nazis, was treasured by the public even before NATO forces bombed it in 1999, during the campaign to force Milosevic to withdraw from Kosovo. This added even more symbolic importance to it.
Vučić himself had reaffirmed the protected legal status of the General Staff building in 2016. Now, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting, the president has told Djukanović that he wants her to strip it of that status. An unnamed “foreign investor” has expressed interest in the location.
Under Serbian law, it was not within Djukanovic’s competence to remove the protected status of the General Staff building. Her institute was supposed to commission an expert examination, which would have to conclude that there were sufficient reasons for the building no longer deserving the status of a protected object. According to sources, Vučić’s tone towards Djukanovic and another cultural heritage official present at the meeting was unpleasant. He told them they were lazy and incompetent. The message was clear: do what I want or resign.
A plausible explanation for Vučić's forceful intervention came the following month, when an agreement between the Serbian government and Kushner's real estate company was published.
Kushner, married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, had been an influential White House adviser during his father-in-law's first term. After Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, Kushner focused on his investment fund.
By early 2024, Trump was on course to secure the Republican nomination and was considered the favorite to win the upcoming election. If Trump were to return to the White House, Kushner would once again become one of the most powerful people on the planet.
The published agreement showed that Serbian authorities had leased the General Staff location to Kushner's company for 99 years and free of charge.
Kushner, whose spokesman said he had been considering the project since 2021, posted an image of the project on the X network, expressing his enthusiasm.
The news was not well received by everyone in Belgrade.
“Serbia is not a buffet and Vucic is not a waiter,” said Aleksandar Jovanovic Quta, the environmental activist who uncovered the deal. “This is not his private property.”
However, Vučić’s regime went ahead and signed a contract, dated May 13, 2024, which The Guardian has seen. In it, the government undertook to have the site’s “cultural heritage status” removed “in a manner satisfactory to” Kushner’s company.
A week after the contract was signed, Djukanovic was summoned to another meeting. This time the president was not present. The meeting was chaired by Sinisa Mali, the Minister of Finance and a close associate of Vučić.
According to the summary of testimony that both women would later give to prosecutors, Mali asked Djukanovic and Olivera Vuckovic, the top cultural heritage official in Belgrade, to cancel the protected status of the General Staff site.
The indictment does not refer to the previous meeting with the president, but indicates that the issue had been discussed earlier.
"Mali asked them if they had considered this issue and if they would initiate the procedure to remove the building's protected status," the indictment states.
The women refused, “believing that the legal conditions for this had not been met.” At that point, Mali told them they had to resign, repeating the ultimatum his boss had given them in February. They resigned.
In her resignation letter, which was seen by The Guardian, Djukanovic wrote that she could not agree to “inappropriate interventions that would permanently destroy all the values of the complex, which testifies to the highest achievements of contemporary Serbian architecture and is of incalculable importance for the preservation of enduring creative values, the education of future generations and the strengthening of the cultural identity of the Serbian people.”
Contacted by The Guardian, Djukanovic and Vučković confirmed the accuracy of this account. Djukanovic added: “I prefer not to make any statements on this matter while the court proceedings are ongoing.”
For months, little was heard about the General Staff project. In November, Trump defeated Kamala Harris and won the US presidential election. Ten days later, Vučić's government announced that the General Staff site had been stripped of its protected status.
Family business
One of the first things Trump did after returning to the Presidency was to abandon his first-term pledge that his family's businesses would not enter into deals 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, an expert on government ethics at the University of Washington School of Law, at the time. According to her, Trump had made it much easier to buy his favors.
The family business remained officially under the control of his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric. In January 2025, four days after their father's inauguration, Eric spoke of several new projects. The Trump and Kushner families, two New York families related by marriage and engaged in the real estate business, had decided to undertake their first joint venture: Kushner's hotel and tower in Belgrade would bear the Trump name.
“It will be a pleasure to bring the family together,” Eric told the New York Times. “Serbia is one of the fastest growing countries in Europe, and we are incredibly honored to be there.”
Kushner, who had traveled to Belgrade for a meeting with the Serbian leader, whom Vucic described as "inspiring," added: "Our research showed that the Trump brand would be the best fit for this market."
This brand has experienced a surge in demand worldwide during Trump's second term, accompanied by accusations that it comes with mutual agreements for political gain.
In Vietnam, Eric was greeted with confetti at the groundbreaking ceremony for a £1.5 billion golf resort, for which permits had been granted with unusual speed. Trump then halved tariffs on Vietnam.
The Saudis poured money into Kushner's fund, and then plans emerged for a Trump Plaza complex in Jeddah. Then Trump agreed to sell the Saudi kingdom new American fighter jets.
A cryptocurrency tycoon's company and senior officials from the United Arab Emirates struck a lucrative deal with World Liberty Financial, the digital currency venture founded by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric. Trump pardoned the cryptocurrency tycoon, while the Emirates gained access to American chips.
Asked about such deals last year, Kushner, who is now Trump's envoy to Russia, Israel and other countries, said: "What people call a conflict of interest ... I call it experience and trusting relationships that we have around the world."
Those who establish a "relationship of trust" with the Trump family, even if there is no clear agreement to exchange benefits, gain something less tangible, but perhaps even more valuable: the aura of friendship with a president who is willing to use his power, superpower, to raise or lower smaller states and their leaders.
Vučić has much in common with Trump. Both have friendly relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and despise the European Union — in Vučić's case, despite Serbia having applied for membership.
The shared contempt for NATO may help explain why the only element of the General Staff building's cultural heritage that the reconstruction project promised to preserve was a memorial dedicated to the alliance's "aggression" against Serbia.
And there are many issues on which Vučić could use US help, including the issue of Kosovo, which he says is still part of Serbia.
Not long after his father returned to power, Donald Trump Jr. arrived in Belgrade. Vučić said that during the meeting with him he had “stressed the importance of economic and political relations between Serbia and the United States, as well as the importance of strategic cooperation between the two countries and joint projects in the coming years.”
When Don Jr. returned the following month, Vučić treated him to a roast pig.
For Vučić, the support of the American first family came at an opportune moment. Days before his regime removed security from the General Staff site, the collapse of the train station tent in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024, which killed 16 people, sparked ongoing protests against corruption.
The slogan of the student organizers became "Serbia or the mafia."
Don Jr.'s visit came on the eve of the largest demonstration in Serbian history. He invited Vučić to his podcast, Triggered, and declared that the Serbian leader's opponents were "politically weaponizing" the Novi Sad tragedy, just as Trump's opponents had done with the riots at the US Capitol after his defeat in the 2020 election.
However, the protesters maintained their momentum and began protesting against Trump Tower as well.
In May 2025, Vučić traveled to the United States, hoping to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president's private club in Florida. He managed to meet with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's discredited former lawyer, but not with the president himself. State media reported that this was because Vučić was ill.
As soon as Vučić returned to Serbia, police arrested Goran Vasić, the person who had been appointed head of the Institute of Cultural Heritage to replace Dubravka Djukanović after her resignation.
According to prosecutors, in order to achieve the cancellation of the protected status of the General Staff building, Vasiqi had falsified an expertise in support of this decision.
More arrests followed. In December 2025, Vučić’s culture minister was charged with abuse of office for his alleged role in the General Staff scheme. Within days, Kushner’s company announced that the project had been canceled.
Vučić's threat of revenge was not empty.
His allies attacked Djukanovic, claiming she had attempted to personally benefit from her time as a cultural heritage official.
Her deputy, who was visited by the state security service after appearing on television to condemn the removal of the protected status of the General Staff building, has been charged with other, unrelated violations.
Both women are expected to testify in the criminal proceedings.
Vučić accuses prosecutors of orchestrating a coup. Others, however, fear they are being too cautious and not going far enough.
This concern was compounded in April when the accused Minister of Culture, Nikola Selakovic, revealed during a court appearance that, while police were raiding his Ministry, he was in his office drinking plum brandy and smoking cigarettes with Mladen Nenadic, the head of the prosecution's organized crime unit.
The spokesperson for this unit said that there had been "no discussion regarding the course of the case."
"In everything that happened regarding potential investments, I saw an opportunity for the country and our citizens," said Selakovic, who faces up to three years in prison if found guilty.
Vučić has not been charged. Neither has his close associate, Mali. Both deny wrongdoing.
The indictment refers to the testimonies of people who were present at Vučić’s meeting in February 2024, but does not mention the meeting itself. This raises questions about the apparent decision to leave out an element that appears to be a key part of the narrative of events.
The spokesperson for the Prosecution's organized crime unit said it had evidence related to Vučić's meeting with cultural heritage officials in February 2024.
In addition to the individuals who have already been charged, prosecutors are "conducting preliminary investigative procedures in this case to determine the possible criminal responsibility of other individuals," the spokesperson added.
Vučić has stepped down as president and cannot seek another term, but is expected to retain control over the regime if elected prime minister on October 25.
In one of his last acts as president, he granted 49 pardons. Some of the beneficiaries have not been identified, and it is not clear whether any of them include defendants in the General Staff case.
The White House referred reporters' questions to the Trump family company. Its representative said: "The Trump Organization has no plans to develop any projects in Belgrade, has never, at any time, been involved in discussions or negotiations to purchase any location in Belgrade, and denies any involvement or knowledge of the allegations."
Kushner's spokesman said: "The claim that Jared Kushner pursued the project in Belgrade as part of some political deal or 'pay-for-hire' scheme is categorically false."
According to him, it was "an opportunity to transform a location associated with a painful chapter in Serbia's history into a symbol of healing and reconciliation, while simultaneously bringing significant private investment, jobs and economic opportunities to Belgrade."
"Jared had no involvement in the Serbian government's internal processes regarding the protected status of the site," Kushner's spokesman said.
Despite Vučić's difficulties, the history of Trump Tower in Belgrade does not seem to have discouraged others from doing business with the American first family.
Trump continues to own shares in dozens of his companies, even if they are nominally run by his sons.
In July, he released his wealth declaration for the first year after returning to the White House. The document showed that he had earned $2 billion.