Cambridge alumnus Mohamed Amersi was involved in a major European corruption scandal involving Swedish telecoms company Telia, the Pandora Papers have revealed.

Amersi, who attended Cambridge University as a medical student in the early 80s, worked as a consultant on a controversial $220m payment made by Telia to a secretive offshore company in 2010. This payment was later found to be a bribe for the influential daughter of Islam Karimov - president of Uzbekistan at the time.

The company has since accepted that the transaction was a “corrupt payment”. It was fined $965m over the deal in a US prosecution.

The ‘Pandora Papers’ are a series of documents revealing the secret offshore financial dealings of the richest and most powerful people in the world - including kings, heads of states, and former British prime ministers.

Amersi, who is a corporate lawyer and prominent donor of the Conservative Party, is one of hundreds whose secret offshore accounts have been leaked.

Amersi worked as a consultant for Telia between 2007 and 2013. He has donated nearly £525,000 to the Tory party since 2018, and contributed £10,000 to Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign.

Amersi denies carrying out any wrongdoing, with his lawyers stating that he did not “knowingly” facilitate corrupt payments and that the financial arrangements for the payment were in place before he began consulting on the deal.

The lawyers say that Amersi assumed due diligence had been carried out by others working on the deal, and that he did not know the payment was a bribe.

However, concerns were raised by a Telia whistleblower Michaela Ahlberg about Amersi’s work for the company in Central Asia.

Ahlberg, who is Telia’s former chief compliance and ethics officer, claimed in an interview that – separate to Amersi’s involvement in the 2010 Uzbekistan deal – Telia was aware of several “big red flags″ in Amersi’s conduct during his time as a consultant in Central Asia. This includes accusations that payments Telia made to Amersi “may have been utilised” in Kazakhstan to “improperly acquire″ regulatory benefits.

Through his lawyers, Amersi stated that though he had met with “senior political figures” in Kazakhstan, the meetings were “official occasions” accompanied by Telia executives, and he had always fully complied with the company’s expenses policy.

His lawyers also stated that accusations of Amersi making “improper or illegal payments”, or helping Telia “improperly” obtain regulatory benefits, were untrue.

Amersi has previously campaigned against corruption, calling it a “heinous crime”

At an event at Oxford University in 2017, Amersi was commended for his “commitment to combating corruption”, a cause he said was “close to [his] heart”.

Amersi even mentioned Telia’s deals in Uzbekistan, but failed to reference his own involvement in it.