Daughter of Uzbekistan’s ex-president faces trial in Switzerland

Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court will open the trial of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan’s late first president, Islam Karimov.

She faces charges of corruption and money laundering in Switzerland, including through the private Geneva bank Lombard Odier, Caliber.Az reports, citing Swiss media.

Prosecutors allege that Karimova received billions of dollars in bribes from international telecommunications companies in exchange for granting mobile operating licenses in Uzbekistan.

Investigators say hundreds of millions of those funds were laundered in Switzerland via bank accounts, shell companies, real estate, and safety deposit boxes.

She is also charged with participation in a criminal organisation.

Swiss authorities have confiscated 800 million Swiss francs ($1.02 billion) in connection with the case.

The indictment by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office states that Karimova’s alleged illegal activities span the period from 2005 to 2012.

She is said to have opened more than 30 bank accounts in Swiss financial institutions through proxies. The trial is expected to last around one month.

Karimova first became embroiled in a corruption scandal in the autumn of 2012.

Media reports at the time suggested she may have received around $1 billion, which was allegedly laundered through the purchase of foreign assets, including a villa in Switzerland.

Investigations into the case were conducted by law enforcement authorities in Sweden, Switzerland, and France.

In December 2017, Karimova was sentenced in Uzbekistan to 10 years in prison on charges including extortion and tax evasion.

Since early 2019, she has been serving her sentence in a penal colony in the Tashkent region.

In March 2020, the Tashkent City Criminal Court handed her a further sentence of 13 years and four months after convicting her of establishing a criminal organisation, extortion, embezzlement, money laundering, and other offences.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov