A photo showing the rough handling of Gulnara Karimova, leaked to the press in 2014, went viral around the world.
Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court on Tuesday, April 28, ordered the dismissal of criminal proceedings against Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan's first president, Islam Karimov. The ruling was reported by Swiss national television.
The court found a «lasting impediment to the continuation of the proceedings»: Karimova cannot leave Uzbekistan before the statute of limitations on the charges against her expires.
The trial, which opened on Monday in the Swiss town of Bellinzona, was threatened with collapse from the outset. Karimova failed to appear in court after Uzbek authorities refused to release her to attend the hearings. Her lawyers argued that their client wished to participate in person but was objectively unable to do so — a circumstance they characterised as her «objective inability» to attend.
Karimova has been held in detention in Uzbekistan since 2014. Her defence team estimates she could be released in December 2028, or potentially earlier given what they describe as the «arbitrary conditions» of her imprisonment. The court nonetheless concluded that by that point the statute of limitations on the Swiss charges would already have lapsed, rendering any continuation of the proceedings legally moot.
Fergana asked Karimova's lawyers to comment on the dismissal ruling. They said:
«Today's dismissal ordered by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in favour of our client, Gulnara Karimova, amounts to an acquittal under Swiss law. The Court held that there exists a lasting impediment to the continuation of the proceedings.
In our view, this means, quite plainly, that in Switzerland one does not try a person who has been held arbitrarily in prison conditions for more than a decade; one does not try, in absentia, a person who has been subjected to sham proceedings — held in her kitchen in Tashkent or behind closed doors — with Uzbek counsel effectively silenced; and one does not try a person where her most basic defence rights have been flagrantly violated by a State — Uzbekistan — that shows disregard for the rule of law and its most fundamental requirements.»
— Grégoire Mangeat, Fanny Margairaz, Romain Wavre, for the defence of Gulnara Karimova.
Background
Criminal proceedings against Karimova in Switzerland were launched in 2012. Swiss prosecutors charged her with participation in a criminal organisation, money laundering, bribery of a foreign public official, and document forgery. Investigators alleged that Karimova ran a network known as «the Office,» which extorted bribes from international telecommunications companies seeking access to the Uzbek market. The investigation remained with prosecutors for five years before an indictment was finally filed in court in September 2023.
