Long-Running Swiss Trial Over Uzbek Corruption Scheme Begins in Bellinzona

Swiss federal prosecutors will open a long-delayed criminal trial on April 27 at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona in a sprawling case tied to Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s late president Islam Karimov. The proceedings mark a rare move by Swiss authorities to take disputed, cross-border allegations over alleged payoffs and account handling to court after years of separate probes.

Swiss investigators say Karimova organized a clandestine network that extracted payments from international telecommunications firms seeking business in Uzbekistan in the late 2000s. The federal prosecutor’s office alleges those sums were channelled through accounts and intermediaries, and the inquiry that produced the charges began in 2012. Accused in the indictment are corruption, membership in an organized criminal group and concealment of illicit funds.

The scope of the investigation widened in 2015 to include a former private banker at Lombard Odier in Geneva, whom prosecutors say oversaw client accounts connected to the scheme between 2008 and 2012. The bank itself faces scrutiny over whether it met its legal duties to prevent misuse of the financial system; Swiss criminal law allows institutions to be held liable in such cases, and past enforcement has led to sanctions against other banks, including Credit Suisse and Banque Pictet & Cie.

Procedural complexity has dogged the matter: separate Swiss inquiries were run in parallel for years before a judge ordered them combined in May 2025, and the alleged misconduct reaches back more than one and a half decades. Legal specialists note the combination of old transactions, international evidence and multiple defendants makes the case unusually cumbersome to bring to trial.

Swiss judges travelled to Tashkent in early 2026 to take testimony from Karimova, who has been detained in Uzbekistan since 2014. Officials in Bern say the questioning was conducted under strict conditions, with queries routed through Uzbekistan’s Prosecutor General rather than posed directly in open court. A Swiss criminal law academic who reviewed the process told reporters that such constraints could leave Swiss prosecutors with evidence the court may find hard to rely on, and that the way testimony was obtained will likely be a central issue in court.

It’s unclear whether the main accused will appear in person. Karimova is unlikely to travel from detention, and authorities have not confirmed the location of her co-defendant. While many Swiss financial-crime cases end in negotiated penal orders, the federal prosecutor has chosen a full hearing here, signaling that key factual disputes remain unresolved. Observers say the outcome will be watched closely for its implications on how Switzerland enforces anti-money-laundering rules and police oversight of private banking.