A vicious feud playing out within Uzbekistan’s ruling family took a new twist on Monday when prosecutors announced that the clan’s most flamboyant member faces charges of involvement in mafia-style corruption.
The news cements the precipitous downfall of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. Until recently she was a businesswoman, a designer with her own line of jewelry, a diplomat representing her country at the UN and an aspiring pop star courting international celebrities.
Now she faces a lengthy spell behind bars in one of Uzbekistan’s notorious jails.
Karimova stands accused of belonging to a mafia faction that plundered assets worth about £40 million (US$64.4 million), Uzbek prosecutors said.
The announcement is the latest development in a year of very public feuding, which — due to Karimova’s trigger-happy Twitter finger — has played out in public.
In a series of scandalous tweets, Karimova accused her mother, Tatyana Karimova, and estranged younger sister, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, of plotting to turn her father against her — once even accusing them of dabbling in the black arts. Both deny her allegations.
Karimova’s social media antics so enraged her dictatorial father, who has ruled Uzbekistan with an iron fist for more than two decades, that he cut off contact with his daughter.
For the last six months, Karimova has been under unofficial house arrest in Tashkent, with all communication with the outside world severed — except for occasional messages smuggled out to journalists.
Her UK-based son, Islam Karimov Jr, told the Guardian in July that he had not spoken to his mother since March, and that when he attempted to approach his grandfather he was turned away by armed men.
In recordings that emerged last month, of which the Guardian has obtained a copy, Karimova complained that she and her 16-year-old daughter, Iman, who is being held with her, were living in conditions “worse than dogs.”
A trial in Tashkent may have become the least uncomfortable option for the Uzbek authorities: Karimova is also embroiled in international corruption inquiries into bribery and money laundering that have become a source of acute embarrassment to the family and to the country.
In March, she was named as a formal suspect in a money laundering investigation in Switzerland. She is also linked to a graft inquiry in Sweden, centering on shadowy payments made by the Nordic telecoms group TeliaSonera — which denies wrongdoing — to gain a footing in the Uzbek mobile phone market.
Domestic politics also played a role in Karimova’s fall from grace. She has made little secret of her political ambitions and, with her ham-fisted attempts to position herself as her father’s successor, she made powerful enemies.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in