Uzbek court slaps ex-leader's daughter with 13-year jail term

A court in Uzbekistan on Wednesday sentenced the daughter of the country's late longtime leader Islam Karimov to more than 13 years in prison for extortion and embezzlement.
Gulnara Karimova, the 47-year-old daughter of Islam Karimov, who died in 2016, is a former diplomat and pop star whose legal problems began in 2014 as rumours spread that she could become her father's successor.
In a closed-door session, a court in the Uzbek capital Tashkent convicted Karimova of fraud and sentenced her to 13 years and four months in jail.
The court said it found Karimova guilty of extortion and embezzlement among other crimes. It did not say what activities led to the charges she was convicted of.
It was the latest case against Karimova, who had already begun serving time for earlier sentences. Under Uzbek law on multiple convictions and sentences, Karimova has already served about four and a half years of her sentence. The court said in a statement it also sentenced five co-conspirators to heavy prison terms of up to 20 years in prison.
Karimoa has reportedly been under house arrest since 2014 after publicly feuding with her mother and sister.
She was sentenced to 10 years in prison on fraud and extortion charges in 2017, though the sentence was later commuted to five years of house arrest.
In March last year, she was sent back to jail for violating conditions of her house arrest, while being accused in a new case of being a member of an "organised criminal group" controlling assets worth more than $1.3 billion in 12 countries.
Karimova has also been the subject of a multi-year corruption probe targeting Western telecoms firms that US and European investigators say paid her billions of dollars to secure access to the national market.
Her daughter Iman Karimova in February posted a letter on Instagram signed by Gulnara Karimova, pleading with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to end her mother's incarceration, saying that she is ready to "drop any claims" to money frozen in her Swiss accounts which could serve "humanitarian projects".