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Eurasia
August 25, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 16
Uzbekistan requests Russia freeze Gulnara Karimova’s real estate assets
bne IntelliNews
The Uzbek Prosecutor General’s Office has asked the Russian authorities to freeze the real estate as- sets of Gulnara Karimova, the disgraced daughter of the late Uzbek autocrat Islam Karimov, the Rus- sian Prosecutor General’s Office said on August 24. The request is currently under consideration.
Little information about Gulnara’s status and condition has been released by the Uzbek authorities since July 28 when the Uzbek prosecutor’s office revealed she had been sentenced in 2015 to five years of “restricted freedom” for embezzlement, extortion and tax evasion.
The Prosecutor-General's Office said it is seeking to freeze $1.5bn worth of Karimova’s assets in 12 countries. The property includes a penthouse, a villa complex, eight apartments, a hotel compound, a house, and a land lot in Moscow. The office also alleged that she illegally obtained over $590mn in assets and received $870mn in kickbacks.
In total, the Uzbek authorities claim Karimova and her associates have stolen $1.6bn, €26mn,
and UZS1.27tn ($311mn), which roughly adds
up to $2bn. The amounts were the focus of an international probe that involves Nordic telecom group TeliaSonera, and Russia’s VimpelCom and MTS. The companies were accused of bribing entities connected to Karimova to win licences to operate 3G and 4G services on the Uzbek mobile market. VimpelCom was fined $795mn by the US and Dutch authorities for the bribes it paid in Uz- bekistan and Telia agreed on a $1bn settlement.
Karimova’s son, also named Islam Karimov, claimed that his mother has only remained alive thanks to computer files she removed from Uz- bekistan prior to her detention that hold compro- mising materials on senior members of govern- ment. That allegation could explain rumours from last year that Karimova had been killed by poison- ing and buried in a cemetery near Tashkent and chimes with her lawyer Grégoire Mangeat’s insist- ence that her security is not guaranteed, despite her being in good health currently.
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