Daughter of former Uzbek president faces trial in Switzerland over money laundering

GENEVA (AP) — The daughter of a former president of Uzbekistan was facing a trial in absentia starting Monday in Switzerland in connection with alleged bribery and money laundering involving assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of former President Islam Karimov, is behind bars in Uzbekistan as the trial opens in a Swiss federal criminal court in the southern city of Bellinzona. It’s set to run through May 22.

Swiss prosecutors say Karimova developed and ran a crime ring known as “The Office” that involved several dozen people and multiple companies. She is accused of depositing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of funds “of criminal origin” in Switzerland and abroad, and arranging for safe deposit boxes for the deposit of cash, jewelry and other valuables of criminal origin, the prosecutors said.

Grégoire Mangeat, one of her defense lawyers, said in an email that Karimova was being prevented from leaving the “prison colony” where she has been detained in Uzbekistan to attend the trial.

“We will seek the full and complete acquittal of Gulnara Karimova,” he said.

Uzbek news outlet Podrobno described Karimova’s presence in the Swiss courtroom as “virtually impossible” as the 53-year-old was already serving her sentence in Uzbekistan.

It said that Karimova had been moved to a women’s penal colony in Uzbekistan’s Zangiota region, on the outskirts of the capital, Tashkent, in early 2025.

Karimova was indicted three years ago in Switzerland along with a former director-general of the Uzbek subsidiary of a Russian telecommunications company for crimes allegedly committed between 2005 and 2013.

That was during her father’s tenure. He led the Central Asian country for over a quarter-century until his death in 2016. Karimova had previously worked in Geneva in connection with the United Nations, and benefited from diplomatic immunity.

Karimova has faced a series of trials after a first conviction in Uzbekistan eight years ago, and is serving a 13-year sentence for organizing a criminal group, extortion and embezzlement.

In November 2024, Swiss prosecutors announced the indictment of Swiss private bank Lombard Odier and a former employee on allegations they had a “decisive role in concealing the proceeds of the criminal activities of ‘The Office.’”

Lombard Odier, in an email, said the prosecutor doesn’t allege that the bank knowingly or intentionally engaged in money laundering, “but rather raises claims relating to alleged organizational shortcomings in prevention measures, which the bank firmly contests and will defend in court.”