1. Gulnara Islamovna Karimova is a former Uzbek businesswoman and the elder daughter of Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan from 1991 to his death in 2016.
33 Facts About Gulnara Karimova
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Gulnara Karimova wielded considerable influence in Uzbekistan owing to her business dealings and family connections.
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Gulnara Karimova was questioned by Swiss prosecutors in December 2016 in a money-laundering investigation.
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Gulnara Karimova graduated from the Youth Mathematic Academy in Tashkent in 1988.
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Between 1998 and 2000, Gulnara Karimova studied at Harvard University, where she was awarded a master's degree in regional studies.
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Gulnara Karimova holds a Bachelor of Arts in telecommunications which she received in 2006, from Tashkent University of Informational Technologies.
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In 1998 and from 2000 to 2003, Gulnara Karimova was counselor at Uzbekistan's Mission to the United Nations.
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In 2012, Gulnara Karimova was honoured with the "Silk Road and Humanitarian Cooperation" Award of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
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Gulnara Karimova is the founder of the Forum of Culture and Arts of Uzbekistan Foundation and chair of its Board of Trustees.
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Gulnara Karimova has been involved with several other non-governmental organizations on Uzbekistan.
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Gulnara Karimova is under investigation in Uzbekistan on charges of corruption, although she denies any wrongdoing.
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Gulnara Karimova has been accused of using UK companies to buy real estate around the world with funds she received through bribery and corruption according to a study by Freedom For Eurasia.
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In 2006, Gulnara Karimova released her first music video singing a song called "Unutma Meni" under the stage name "Googoosha", apparently her father's nickname for her.
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Gulnara Karimova performed in a later music video, singing a duet of "Besame Mucho" with Julio Iglesias.
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Gulnara Karimova wrote a screenplay for The Theft of the White Cocoon, a story about the origin of the famed Central Asian silk, and set in the 5th and 6th centuries.
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In June 2012, Gulnara Karimova released her self-titled debut album in the US and other countries on iTunes.
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In March 2009, Gulnara Karimova presented her own special jewellery collection "GULI for Chopard", designed for renowned Swiss company Chopard.
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In September 2010, Gulnara Karimova presented her fashion line "Guli" featuring Uzbek fabrics and designs based on the traditional Uzbek long coat, at New York's Fashion Week.
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In September 2011, Gulnara Karimova's planned spring 2012 fashion show at New York's Fashion Week was cancelled after Human Rights Watch and other organizations had drawn attention to her connection to her father's government and its record on torture, and child and forced labour.
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In May 2010, Gulnara Karimova was at the center of a scandal surrounding her attendance of the annual "Cinema against AIDS" gala fundraising event organised by amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research during the Cannes Film Festival.
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AmfAR faced criticism from NGOs such as Reporters without Borders, with claims that it would be hypocritical for AmfAR to accept the attendance of Gulnara Karimova given her country's refusal to take AIDS treatment seriously.
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When Gulnara Karimova refused to accede to the US court ruling awarding custody of the two children to Maqsudi, an international arrest warrant in her name was filed with Interpol.
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In 2003, when Sodiq Safoyev was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, rumours about his marriage to Gulnara Karimova surfaced in local and international media.
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On 22 November 2016, a Central Asian news portal Centre1 claimed that Gulnara Karimova died on 5 November 2016 after being poisoned, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Minor cemetery in Tashkent.
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Gulnara Karimova said that she was being kept against her will "without any even basic human rights that every person deserves on this Earth".
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Gulnara Karimova explained that living in London, he cannot go back to Uzbekistan due to his fear that he would not be allowed to return, which was the reason why he did not attend the funeral of his grandfather, who was initially responsible for putting Karimova under house-arrest.
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In January 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gulnara Karimova was questioned by Swiss prosecutors in December 2016 regarding accusations of money-laundering.
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In 2015, an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported that Gulnara Karimova had taken over US$1 billion in bribes from Scandinavian and Russian telecom companies wanting involvement in the Uzbek market.
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In 2016, the United States Department of Justice alleged that Gulnara Karimova fraudulently received $800 million and some of it had been through ABLV Bank and Parex Bank for companies linked to her by three telecommunications operators in Uzbekistan.
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Gulnara Karimova was under investigation in Uzbekistan on charges of corruption, although she denies any wrongdoing.
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Gulnara Karimova was alleged to have acquired $595 million worth of assets and received $869.3 million in kickbacks that were paid into offshore accounts.
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In 2017 Gulnara Karimova was sentenced to 10 years in jail for fraud and money laundering but that was commuted in 2018 to five-year house arrest.
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In March 2020, Gulnara Karimova received an additional 13-year sentence after being found guilty of extortion, money laundering, and other crimes.