Selakovic and Ivanovic Return to Court in Generalstab Case

The trial in the case known as “Generalstab” resumed today, September 21, before the Special Department for Organized Crime of the Higher Court in Belgrade. The hearing was scheduled for 2:30 p.m., and the floor went to the defense of Aleksandar Ivanovic, acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade and the only one of the four defendants whom the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime says confessed to the offense during the investigation.

A group of citizens and students gathered outside the courthouse and greeted the defendants with whistles and chants of “thieves, thieves.” Ivanovic arrived first, while caretaker Minister of Culture Nikola Selakovic, Ministry of Culture secretary Slavica Jelaca, and acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments Goran Vasic arrived somewhat later and were also whistled at by the crowd. The group hung a banner on the fence in front of the court reading “We are all witnesses.” Traffic around the court was not blocked. Among those present were architect Miljan Salata, a candidate on the Student List, and activist Veroljub Saric, who carried his own banner reading “Students are winning.”

Student Valentina Moravcevic told reporters outside the court:

“We expect it to proceed in line with the law. We are not here to apply pressure, but to show that we care about the country’s cultural heritage. We have been showing that ever since protection was removed from Generalstab, and we are ready to keep fighting this battle until everyone responsible answers for it in line with the law. We will keep showing that we care. Protection of cultural heritage is among the most important issues in the world, and if I were the Minister of Culture, I would be glad to see so many young people interested in this case.”

Her words come as the campaign for the early parliamentary election, called for October 25, overlaps with a court case against one of the ministers serving in the caretaker government.

The indictment and the trial so far

The Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime filed the indictment on December 15, 2025, against Selakovic, Jelaca, Vasic and Ivanovic. All four are charged with abuse of office, while Selakovic, Jelaca and Vasic also face charges of forging an official document; Ivanovic is charged with aiding in the forgery. The indictment concerns how the Generalstab complex in central Belgrade lost its status as a protected cultural monument.

According to the indictment, on July 10, 2024, Vasic, acting on Selakovic’s instructions, drafted a proposed decision to revoke the complex’s status as a cultural monument, without the knowledge or involvement of the institute’s own experts. Based on that document, the Government of Serbia decided in November 2024 to strip the Generalstab complex of its status as a cultural monument and remove it from the register of protected immovable cultural property.

Behind the whole procedure stood a contract the Government of Serbia had signed with a company linked to Jared Kushner, son in law of US President Donald Trump, under which a luxury residential and commercial complex was to be built on the site of Generalstab, which had been damaged in the NATO bombing of 1999. Kushner’s company withdrew from the project after public protests.

What Ivanovic wrote in his notebook

Ivanovic’s testimony today carries extra weight because of a notebook he himself handed over to the prosecution during the investigation. According to the indictment, in it he wrote by hand about a meeting held on July 10, 2024, at the Ministry of Culture, at which Selakovic asked him to prepare a “proposal or opinion” on revoking the cultural monument status of the Generalstab buildings. He then handed the document he drafted directly to Slavica Jelaca.

At the start of the trial, Ivanovic pleaded not guilty, though the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime says he confessed to the offense during the investigation. His testimony today is expected to close the defense phase of the trial, after which witness hearings should begin.

Selakovic and Jelaca presented their defense at earlier hearings and denied guilt at the time. Vasic declined to present a defense at the previous hearing, citing what he described as the media lynching he had been subjected to.

The minister and secretary’s defense

Selakovic said during his earlier defense statement:

“I understood, linguistically and grammatically, what the prosecution is charging me with, but in substance I don’t understand what I did wrong.”

He also argued at the time that the case was politically motivated, aimed, as he put it, at discrediting state officials, triggering internal institutional instability and enabling political change outside the procedure set out by law.

Jelaca said in her defense:

“My role was not to provide expert assessments, but to handle administrative tasks.”

She also said that the Generalstab and Army of Serbia and Montenegro buildings, destroyed in the 1999 bombing and no longer in use, met the legal conditions for removal from the register of protected cultural monuments.

What happens next

Students taking part in the blockades called on citizens to follow today’s main hearing, expecting that Estela Radonjic Zivkov, a former deputy director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and a candidate on the Student List, could testify before the court. She left the institute, along with its then director Dubravka Djukanovic, after alleging pressure to clear the way for stripping Generalstab of its protected status.

Whether witness hearings announced for today will follow Ivanovic’s testimony, and what that will mean for a case running since last December, will become clear once the hearing scheduled for 2:30 p.m. gets underway.