The Trump family’s $500 million luxury hotel project in Serbia, slated to be built on the site of a bombed-out Defense Ministry building, has run into an embarrassing complication. A key document the Serbian government has relied on to deliver this deal was forged, officials there said this week.
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, and his business partners plan to build a luxury residential and commercial complex on the site of the long-vacant compound that is slated to include a Trump International Hotel, the first in Europe.
The leader of the Serbian agency charged with protecting cultural monuments admitted to the authorities that he had forged a government document allowing the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense headquarters in Belgrade to be demolished and replaced with the Trump hotel.
The project won tentative approval from the Serbian government last year, even before the government officially moved to revoke the protected historic status of the former Defense Ministry complex, which was heavily damaged during a 1999 bombing campaign by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Serbian government officials say that the agency leader, Goran Vasic, fabricated an expert opinion to justify the government’s decision to strip the site of its cultural heritage status.
“Vasic forged a proposal for a decision to revoke the status of cultural property,” the Office of the Prosecutor for Organized Crime said in a statement.
The forged document served as the legal basis for lifting protection from the complex. Mr. Vasic now faces charges of abuse of office and forgery of official documents, officials in Belgrade said this week.
Affinity Partners, Mr. Kushner’s company, said in a statement that it had played no role in the review of the site’s cultural status. Work at the site has not started and the fate of the project is now less clear, the company said.
“Today we learned from media reports that a former Serbian government official with no connection to our firm allegedly falsified documents related to the landmark designation of the Belgrade Square project,” the statement said. “We will review this matter and determine next steps.”
In Serbia, the prospect that the historic complex would be demolished and replaced with a luxury hotel benefiting the American president has spurred outrage.
Opposition leaders in Serbia’s Parliament are pointing to the admission that the document was forged as evidence that the Trump and Kushner family businesses secured a special deal.
“This was all to make room for the Trumps,” said Dragan Jonic, a lawmaker who has helped lead protests against the project.
The land at the site is slated to be leased to Mr. Kushner and his partners for 99 years, under the terms of the tentative agreement. It is slated to be the first joint project by the Kushner and Trump families.
“Serbia is one of the fastest-growing countries in Europe, and we’re incredibly honored to be there,” Eric Trump, the president’s son, said in an interview in January, adding that “it’s going to be fun to bring the family together.”
Several protests have been held in Belgrade opposing the demolition of the site. The most recent took place in March, on the 26th anniversary of the NATO bombing.
The protests at the project site have been just one part of nationwide student demonstrations against the president of Serbia and his government. They began in November after a concrete canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, killing 16 people. Students and opposition politicians have blamed the collapse on shoddy work by contractors tied to corrupt officials.
Donald Trump Jr., the oldest son of President Trump, has visited Serbia twice in recent months to show his support for President Aleksandar Vucic, whose administration rapidly moved to approve the Trump and Kushner families’ hotel project. These visits have helped bolster Mr. Vucic’s standing amid the protesters’ calls for his resignation.
The project in Serbia is one of several recent Trump family deals that involve foreign governments. Others include a $2 billion commitment from United Arab Emirates to a Trump family cryptocurrency company and luxury real-estate projects in Qatar and Oman.
Ethics lawyers, including attorneys who served in the White House for Republican and Democratic administrations, said the involvement of foreign governments in such real estate and cryptocurrency deals creates an appearance of corruption, or at least of special treatment for the family of the president.
“This creates the impression if not the reality that our United States foreign policy is being influenced by the business interest of the president and the president’s family,” said Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “It is extremely dangerous to have a president with far-reaching business interests around the world.”
