British businessman Mohamed Amersi advised a Swedish multinational telecoms company Telia on a 2010 deal, found to be a $220m (£162m) bribe for Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the then president of Uzbekistan. That’s according to leaks by the Pandora Papers, led by the BBC Panorama and The Guardian in the UK.
Amersi, whose donations to the Conservative Party in the UK included more than £100,000 towards the 2019 general election campaign and £10,000 to the prime minister's leadership bid, denied the allegations against him.
The businessman’s lawyers said any arrangements for the deal were in place long before and denied any suggestion he had “knowingly” facilitated corrupt payments. According to Amersi’s legal team, he had no reason to believe the arrangement amounted to any sort of bribery.
Mr Amersi’s name is featured in the Pandora Papers, a leak of almost 12 million files, raising concerns about his consultancy role for Telia over a six-year period, between 2007 and 2013, as the company strived to secure lucrative deals in the Central Asia region.
Telia’s former chief compliance and ethics officer, Michaela Ahlberg, has come forward claiming that the company has identified other concerning issues related to Amersi’s role, on top of the involvement in the 2010 Uzbekistan deal.
A close friend of the Tories, Amersi has previously said that major donors like himself “get access, you get invitations, you get privileged relationships” if they are part of the setup. He is said to have access to ministers through his donations to the party and its leadership.
Amersi is reportedly interested in having an impact on the Conservative Party’s foreign strategy in the Middle East.