The government of Uzbekistan has jailed Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of the country’s late president, Islam Karimov. Once a prominent sociali
The government of Uzbekistan has jailed Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of the country’s late president, Islam Karimov. Once a prominent socialite, fashion designer and singer, she was charged her with massive fraud and money laundering and concealing foreign currency and is being held behind bars.
The 45 year old who is a mother to a London based 23 year old, Islam Karimov Jr., was once tipped to succeed her father and was a high-profile figure, serving in diplomatic posts including being an ambassador to Spain and Uzbekistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. She also organised a fashion week, had her own jewellery line and released pop singles under the name Googoosha as well as running entertainment television channels.
In a statement, the organised crime unit of the Prosecutor-General’s Office in Uzbekistan said she was a member of an organised criminal group that controlled assets worth more than $1.3 billion in 12 countries. It said these included London properties worth £22.9 million ($29.95 million) and hotels in Dubai worth $67.4 million. Among the long list of allegations against Karimova are that she fraudulently acquired assets worth $595 million and received $869.3 million in kickbacks that were paid into offshore accounts.
She has been reportedly under house arrest in Uzbekistan since 2014 after publicly feuding with her mother and her younger sister Lola on Twitter. She did not attend her father’s funeral. The statement by the Prosecutor-General’s office says that she was handed a five-year non-custodial sentence that did not see her jailed, in 2015. Karimova is also the subject of a multi-year corruption probe targeting Western telecoms firms that US and European investigators say paid her billions of dollars to secure access to the national market.
Swiss prosecutors reportedly questioned her in Tashkent in December, quashing rumours of her possible death. Her father, Islam Karimov, the late authoritarian president of the secretive ex-Soviet Central Asian state, died following a reported stroke in September last year.
