AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File
A proposed $500 million Trump luxury hotel in Serbia is up in the air after a government official allegedly forged a document to expedite the project, The New York Times reported late Wednesday night.
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and his firm Affinity Partners are seeking to build a Trump International Hotel on a vacant site in Belgrade where a defense ministry building once stood before it was bombed in a U.S.-led NATO air campaign in 1999. The hotel would be the first Trump-branded hotel in Europe.
The Times reported:
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 Times went on to note that the forgery was the legal basis for revoking the protected status of the compound.
Affinity Partners issued a statement denying any involvement or knowledge of the incident.
“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,” it read. “We will review this matter and determine next steps.”
The site of the proposed hotel has drawn protestors in recent months, most recently in March on the 26th anniversary of the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Serbia.
Despite Trump’s election in November, members of his family have been actively pursuing foreign business deals. That includes a $5.5 billion golf resort in Qatar and a $2 billion commitment from the United Arab Emirates to the Trump family cryptocurrency exchange. The president is visiting both countries this week during his first official trip abroad in his second term. This week, Trump said he will accept a $400 million jet from the Qatari royal family that he will use as Air Force One before retaining the jet after his presidency.
