Thousands protest against Kushner's Serbia project, commemorate NATO bombing victims

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Thousands gathered in Belgrade on Monday to remember a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 and protest against the development of a luxury compound by an investment company set up by Jared Kushner, the son in law of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Serbia has seen months of anti-government rallies after 16 deaths from a railway station roof collapse triggered accusations of widespread corruption and negligence.

The protests have swelled to include students, teachers and farmers in a major challenge to President Aleksandar Vucic, a populist in power for 12 years as prime minister or president.

The protest on Monday was called by students of the Belgrade state University, who have been blocking classes at their faculties since early December and who have led anti-government protests for the past four months.

Ognjen Pjevac, a 20-year old student at the faculty came to the protest in front of the former army headquarters which was last year leased to Kushner's U.S.-based investment firm Affinity Partners by Serbian authorities.

"It is the 26th anniversary of the NATO bombing. And we protest because this building has been given to someone to make profit," Pjevac said. "But it (the buildings) should remain here as it is a testimony to NATO aggression."

The two buildings were damaged during NATO bombing of what was then Yugoslavia, which included Serbia and Montenegro, to halt the killing of ethnic Albanians in police counter-insurgency.

The buildings were designed by Serbian architect Nikola Dobrovic and built between 1957 and 1965.

Their design is meant to resemble a canyon of the Sutjeska river in Eastern Bosnia, where one of the major World War Two battles was fought in 1943.

"The buildings should have remained as protected cultural monument," Predrag Janjic, 61, one of the protesters told Reuters.

(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac, editing by Ed Osmond)