For the first time in three years, Uzbekistan officials disclosed the details of the high-profile corruption case of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of late Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
The new details reveal that Karimova – a former diplomat singer, fashion designer, and once Uzbekistan’s most powerful woman – owned luxury assets in occupied Crimea, including a hotel, mansion, and land plot in the southern Crimean city of Yalta.
The peninsula has been illegally occupied by Russia since the 2014 EuroMaidan revolution.
Karimova has been in custody following a 2015 conviction and faces addition changes from an ongoing investigation. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Uzbekistan released a statement on July 28.
Karimova has been accused of corruption and money laundering in her home country as well as in Sweden and Switzerland.
Uzbek prosecutors claimed that the damages she and her associates caused to Uzbekistan amount to some $2.3 billion.
The total value of her assets in 12 countries in Europe, United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong was estimated at over $1.5 billion.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Uzbekistan said that it has sent requests to all jurisdictions for the arrest of Karimova’s assets.
She was taken under house arrest in February 2014 after reportedly having fallen into disfavour of her father Islam Karimov, whose 26-year-long presidency was marked by abysmal human rights violations and repression of media and political opponents.
He died in September 2016.
On July 28, Uzbek prosecutors disclosed that she was convicted to five years of “restricted freedom” in 2015. She was found guilty of extortion, embezzlement, tax evasion, concealment and removal of financial statements committed with her associates between 2001 and 2013.
Karimova has been charged with six more crimes – fraud, concealment of foreign currency, money laundering, violation of trade and customs regulations, and document forgery – as part of an ongoing investigation.
She remains in custody.
Karimova’s cousin and ex-business partner Akbar Abdullaev was granted refugee status in Ukraine last month, the Kyiv Post reported on June 28. Abdullaev, who is under investigation for financial crimes by the Uzbek authorities, has managed to avoid extradition to his home country.
