Protesters on Court Steps Boo Culture Minister as His Trial Resumes in General Staff Building Case

Nikola Selakovic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

A small group of students and other protesters assembled in front of the Special Court building in Belgrade on June 10 to wait for Serbian Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic as his trial in the General Staff building case was scheduled to resume.

Along with a few whistles and booing, cries of "Treason" and an ironic "Just let them go like Milic, so we can go home" -- referring to Belgrade police chief Veselin Milic, recently arrested in connection to a murder -- could be heard from the group, BETA's journalist reported from the scene. The student protest movement called for an assembly under the watchword "We Are All Witnesses," but this time there was no banner with that message waiting for Selakovic on the court steps. Democratic Party president Srdjan Milivojevic was among the protesters.

Selakovic and three civil servants are charged with committing a series of illegal acts to create a falsified document which was then used by the authorities to strip the General Staff building in downtown Belgrade, damaged in NATO's bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, of its status of protected cultural asset and to adopt special legislation. These actions paved the way for the building to be torn down to make way for the construction of a luxury hotel complex featuring high towers, envisaged in a contract signed by erstwhile Serbian minister of construction Goran Vesic and the representatives of a company owned by Jared Kuschner, son in law to U.S. President Donald Trump, which withdrew from the project "for the time being" amid the resulting public outcry.

Like his co-defendants, principal defendant Selakovic pleaded not guilty and in his defense statements attacked the Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office, which is pursuing other cases that are politically sensitive to the government, like the fatal collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in 2024. Even before the trial began, Selakovic began to claim that the proceedings were in fact targeting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who has used his public appearances to defend the minister.