The eldest daughter of the late Uzbek leader, once described as a robber baron, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after spending several years under house arrest.

Formerly known as Uzbekistan’s most powerful woman, Gulnara Karimova was considered a potential successor to her father before her fall from grace and house arrest in 2014.

Her future began to look even gloomier after her father, Islam Karimov, who was the only president in Uzbekistan’s quarter-century of independence, died in 2016.

Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday found the 47-year old, who has been in jail since March last year, and several of her accomplices guilty of organizing a criminal gang involved in extortion, embezzlement, money laundering and other unspecified crimes.

The court said in the statement that Ms Karimova, who once served as Uzbekistan’s ambassador at the UN and in Spain, has been sentenced to 13 years and 4 months in prison.

The verdict was delivered just a month after the late dictator’s daughter reportedly sent a letter to Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, offering to return $686 million (£584 million) to the country’s coffers in exchange for dropping the case against her.

Just a few years ago, Ms Karimova, the eldest daughter of one of the world’s most authoritarian rulers at the time, was known for a lavish lifestyle and mingling with Western celebrities.

The Harvard-educated woman even built a pop career on the side under the name Googoosha but to businessmen who dealt with her, Ms Karimova was a bully who used her name to take over any business she liked, from a shop or a restaurant to a branch of a major foreign mobile phone company.

US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks described her a “robber baron” and “the most hated person in the country.”

The eldest daughter reportedly fell out with her father at the end of 2013 when the then-Uzbek leader confronted her about a corruption investigation in Switzerland as well as her growing internet presence. She was placed under house arrest the following year.

In 2017, Ms Karimova was sentenced to 10 years in prison on corruption charges but remained under house arrest after the sentence was commuted.