Switzerland\u2019s Federal Criminal Court will open the trial of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan\u2019s late first president, Islam Karimov.<\/p>\n
She faces charges of corruption and money laundering in Switzerland, including through the private Geneva bank Lombard Odier, Caliber.Az<\/a> reports, citing Swiss media<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prosecutors allege that Karimova received billions of dollars in bribes from international telecommunications companies in exchange for granting mobile operating licenses in Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n Investigators say hundreds of millions of those funds were laundered in Switzerland via bank accounts, shell companies, real estate, and safety deposit boxes.<\/p>\n She is also charged with participation in a criminal organisation.<\/p>\n Swiss authorities have confiscated 800 million Swiss francs ($1.02 billion) in connection with the case.<\/p>\n The indictment by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor\u2019s Office states that Karimova\u2019s alleged illegal activities span the period from 2005 to 2012.<\/p>\n She is said to have opened more than 30 bank accounts in Swiss financial institutions through proxies.\u00a0The trial is expected to last around one month.<\/p>\n Karimova first became embroiled in a corruption scandal in the autumn of 2012.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Investigations into the case were conducted by law enforcement authorities in Sweden, Switzerland, and France.<\/p>\n In December 2017, Karimova was sentenced in Uzbekistan to 10 years in prison on charges including extortion and tax evasion.<\/p>\n Since early 2019, she has been serving her sentence in a penal colony in the Tashkent region.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n By Bakhtiyar Abbasov<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Switzerland\u2019s Federal Criminal Court will open the trial of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan\u2019s late first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1031,1037,1036,1032,1035,1030,1034,1033,1029,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-56413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-analysis-of-azerbaijan","9":"tag-azerbaijan","10":"tag-baku","11":"tag-important-news-of-azerbaijan","12":"tag-international-experts","13":"tag-interviews","14":"tag-interviews-with-azerbaijani-analysts","15":"tag-news-from-baku","16":"tag-news-of-azerbaijan","17":"tag-switzerland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116476729345174569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}