Daily Record
November 13

The daughter of Uzbekistan's president is claiming diplomatic immunity in an effort to nullify orders from a Superior Court judge in Morristown.

Gulnora Karimova was ordered to return son Islam, 9, and daughter Iman, 4, from Uzbekistan to New Jersey in a child custody dispute with her estranged husband, Mendham Township businessman Mansur Maqsudi.

A motion filed by her lawyer says Karimova does not have to comply with certain American court orders, citing her dignitary status as a counselor or diplomatic member of the Permanent Mission of Uzbekistan to the United Nations between Oct. 20, 1997, and May 31, 2002.

Karimova's father, Islam Karimov, has been president of the former Soviet state since 1991.

The order to return the children stems from a complaint for divorce and child custody that Maqsudi filed in Morris County in October 2001. Since their marriage in 1991, the couple and their children mostly have lived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, or in Morris County.

Judge Deanne Wilson, sitting in Morristown, ruled on Sept. 12 that she has jurisdiction to decide the custody dispute between Karimova and her husband. The judge gave Karimova until Oct. 12 to bring the children back to New Jersey, and also ordered that telephone contact be established in the meantime between the father and his son.

Karimova's attorney, Paul Rowe, could not be reached Tuesday and court documents did not explain Karimova's claimed diplomatic duties. A woman at the Permanent Mission of Uzbekistan to the United Nations said no one was available to comment on the position.

Maqsudi's lawyer, Edward O'Donnell, said he did not know what the post entailed, but that he will oppose the mother's effort to invoke diplomatic immunity.

The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and a later agreement between the United States and the United Nations say that foreign nationals with diplomatic status are immune from being served with civil suits, as the 2001 divorce complaint was characterized, and from being arrested, according to Rowe's motion.

His motion was accompanied by a photocopy of a 1997 letter from Alisher Vohidov, representative of Uzbekistan to the United Nations, to Kofi A. Annan, secretary-general of the U.N. The letter requests that diplomatic immunity be granted to Karimova.

Karimova did not attend the trial in Morris County over jurisdiction and has been fighting the ruling, most recently through the motion to vacate her receipt of her husband's original complaint for divorce and custody on the grounds that she was immune from being served.

Maqsudi has not seen his children since July 2001, when he says his wife fled to the former Soviet state in response to his request for a divorce. Since Wilson's ruling in September, the father's lawyers have sought sanctions against the mother and asked the judge to issue a warrant for her arrest that could be served upon her if she re-enters this country.

The mother, in court papers, said she and Maqsudi mutually agreed in early 2001 to divorce, and that she fled to Tashkent in July 2001 after a particularly explosive argument with her husband. Karimova defended herself in the papers by blaming her husband for creating "an incendiary situation" for the children.

"I am on the proverbial hot seat, trying to satisfy your honor as to why I remain in Tashkent - my home - with our children. It was not I who charted a litigation war plan, but plaintiff!" the mother said in court papers.

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