Jailed Gulnara Karimova Asks Mirziyoev For Clemency

Gulnara Karimova (file photo)

Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of the late president of Uzbekistan, who is serving a prison term on corruption charges, has asked President Shavkat Mirziyoev for clemency.

In a June 23 statement posted on Instagram by her daughter, Gulnara Karimova said she was "sorry," while expressing regret "over any disappointment that I may have caused."

Karimova said she is in need of surgery for an unspecified health problem.

Karimova claimed that $1.2 billion of her assets had already been repatriated to Uzbekistan and was "now working for the benefit of the budget of the republic."

She also said that she had told her lawyers to end legal claims on another $686 million kept on her bank accounts abroad.

The statement came about a week after Karimova's Swiss lawyer, Gregoire Mangeat, warned about her health.

Karimova, once seen as a possible successor to her father, Islam Karimov, has been tied to money-laundering investigations in Sweden and Switzerland, and was convicted for financial crimes in Uzbekistan.

She was placed under house arrest in Tashkent in 2014, when her father was still alive and ran the country.

Karimov died in 2016 and Mirziyoev became the president after that.

In December 2017 Karimova was sentenced to a 10-year prison term, but several months later, the sentence was reclassified to house arrest and shortened to five years.

In early March, Uzbekistan's Prosecutor-General’s Office said a Tashkent court had found Karimova had violated the terms of her house arrest and ordered her sent to prison.