The $500 million luxury hotel project of US President Donald Trump's family in Serbia has faced an unpleasant complication after a key document the Serbian government relied on to enable the project's implementation was forged, the New York Times (NYT) reports.
The newspaper recalls that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his business partners planned to build a luxury residential-business complex and hotel in Belgrade, but the acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Goran Vasić, admitted that he forged an official document allowing the demolition of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense building and the construction of Trump's hotel in its place.
The project received preliminary approval from the Serbian government last year, even before the status of a protected cultural property for the former Ministry of Defense complex, which was severely damaged during the NATO bombing in 1999, was officially revoked, it said.
The NYT reports that Serbian officials claim that Vasić fabricated the expert opinion to justify the government's decision to revoke the site's status as a cultural property. The forged document served as the legal basis for revoking the protection of the complex, and Vasić now faces charges of abuse of office and forgery of official documents, it added.
Affinity Partners, owned by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, said it had no role in reviewing the site's cultural status. Work on the site has not yet begun, and the project's fate is now uncertain, the company said, according to the NYT.
"Today, we learned from media reports that a former Serbian government official, who is in no way affiliated with our company, allegedly falsified documents regarding the protected cultural property status for the Trg project in Belgrade. We will investigate this case and decide on next steps," Kouchner's company said in a statement.
The NYT recalls that the possibility of the historic complex in downtown Belgrade being demolished and replaced with a luxury hotel for the use of the American president has caused public discontent, leading to several protests, and adds that, under the terms of the preliminary agreement, the land at that location should be leased to Kushner and his partners for 99 years, and that it would be the first joint project of the Kushner and Trump families.
Donald Trump Jr., President Trump's eldest son, has visited Serbia twice in recent months to express support for President Aleksandar Vučić, whose administration has rushed through a hotel project for the Trump and Kushner families. The visits have further strengthened Vučić's position at a time when protesters are calling for his resignation, the newspaper added.
The NYT also states that the project in Serbia is one of several recent deals by the Trump family involving foreign governments. Others include a $2 billion investment from the United Arab Emirates in a crypto company linked to the Trump family, as well as luxury construction projects in Qatar and Oman.
Ethics lawyers, including attorneys who have served in the White House for both Republican and Democratic administrations, argue that foreign government involvement in such real estate and cryptocurrency deals creates the appearance of corruption, or at least special treatment for the president's family.
"It creates the impression, if not the reality, that U.S. foreign policy is influenced by the business interests of the president and his family... It is extremely dangerous when a president has widespread business interests around the world," said Richard Painter, who was the chief legal advisor for ethics in the White House under President George W. Bush, according to the NYT.
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