Goran Vasić, acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, has been accused of abuse of office and document forgery concerning the General Staff building, as announced yesterday.

Evropa Nostra, a leading European network dedicated to cultural heritage, has stressed the importance of adhering to legal standards and the rule of law in the General Staff case.

They have called for the Serbian government to urgently review its decision to remove protection from this significant cultural monument in light of the recent events and suspicions of document forgery.

In their statement, Evropa Nostra expressed assurance that there is still time to abandon plans for the building's demolition and to engage in broad professional and societal consultations to find a resolution that would restore the General Staff building as a symbol of modernist architecture and collective memory.

On November 14, last year, the Serbian government rescinded the protective status of the General Staff building to facilitate the construction of a luxury residential and commercial complex by a private investment fund owned by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

The decree to revoke protection, which bore Vasić's signature, reportedly lacked a professional elaboration or the opinion of conservationists, as stated by the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office.

Numerous academic departments, professional associations, and architectural academies have warned for over a year about the illegality and detrimental effects of the decision to strip the General Staff building of its protection.

This culminated in May last year with the public presentation of a Declaration concerning its fate.

These entities have further indicated that state institutions could have initiated proceedings to determine accountability for the illegally made decisions much earlier.

A similar stance is shared by various opposition parties, which have organized protests against the government's intent to revoke the protection of the General Staff building, located in the city center of Belgrade and significantly damaged during NATO bombings in 1999.

The Forum of the University of Arts, along with several free universities from Novi Sad, Belgrade, Kragujevac, Niš, and Novi Pazar, as well as the Proaktiv University in Priština, have called for the contentious decisions made by the Serbian government to be annulled promptly and for the General Staff building complex to remain protected under the Cultural Heritage Law.