Uzbekistan jails ex-president's daughter Gulnara Karimova

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Uzbekistan said Friday it has jailed the eldest daughter of late President Islam Karimov, Gulnara Karimova, once a prominent socialite, fashion designer and singer, after charging her with massive fraud and money laundering.

In a statement, the Uzbekistan Prosecutor-General's Office said that "Gulnara Karimova has been charged" with crimes including fraud, money laundering and concealing foreign currency "and she has been held behind bars".

The statement also said she was a member of an "organised criminal group" that controlled assets worth more than 1.3 billion US dollars in 12 countries.

File photo of Gulnara Karimova /AFP Photo

It said these included London properties worth 29.95 million US dollars and hotels in Dubai worth 67.4 million US dollars.

Karimova, 45, is the eldest daughter of the late president of the Central Asian state, who died last year.

She has been reportedly under house arrest in the country since 2014 after publicly feuding with her mother and her younger sister Lola on Twitter. She did not attend her father's funeral in September.

In the first official statement on her current status, the Prosecutor-General's Office said that in 2015 she was handed a five-year non-custodial sentence.

Karimova was once a high-profile figure tipped to succeed her father, serving in diplomatic posts including the ambassador to Spain and Uzbekistan's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

She also organized a fashion week, had her own jewelry line and released pop singles under the name Googoosha as well as running entertainment television channels.

Russian journalist and Central Asia expert Arkady Dubnov told Echo of Moscow radio on Friday that the public announcement after years of secrecy surrounding Karimova was due to "the necessity for the new Uzbek authorities to show results in the investigation ahead of the first anniversary of Islam Karimov's death."

It is also intended to show that the government is making real attempts to recover assets abroad connected to Karimova and her allies, he said.

(Source: AFP)