Jailed daughter of late Uzbekleader says gave state $1.2b

TASHKENT: The jailed daughter of Uzbekistan’s former president, once tipped to succeed her father, says she has given $1.2 billion to the state and asked to be released. Gulnara Karimova, the 46-year-old daughter of late strongman Islam Karimov, was sentenced to a decade behind bars in 2017 on fraud and money laundering charges. In a statement via Instagram on Sunday she stopped short of acknowledging guilt but made an apology to the people of the central Asian nation for “disappointment that I might have brought”. The former diplomat and popstar said more than one billion dollars of her “personal assets” had been given to the state “in the interest of the republic’s budget”. The Russian-language post also said Karimova and her legal team had relinquished claims to $686 million kept in foreign banks.