The former leader and her niece, British lawmaker Tulip Siddique, were sentenced in absentia on charges of corruption in land deals.
A Dhaka court has sentenced former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to five years in prison in absentia and her niece British MP Tulip Siddique to two years in prison for corruption in a land acquisition case.
Judge Rabiul Alam of the Special Judges’ Court in Dhaka said on Monday that Hasina, who has lived in exile in India since being ousted in last year’s riots, abused her power as prime minister in the deal.
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Siddique, an MP from Britain’s ruling Labor Party, was found guilty of corruptly influencing Hasina to help Hasina’s mother (Hasina’s sister Sheikh Rehana) and two brothers acquire land for a government project in Dhaka.
According to reports, Rehana, who is not said to be currently based in Bangladesh, was sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison, and each of the three will be fined 100,000 taka (approximately 82,000 yen), with an additional six months in prison if they fail to pay.
The other 14 people charged in the case were sentenced to five years in prison.
Anti-Corruption Commission prosecutor Khan Mainul Hasan said his team had details of Siddique’s interactions with Hasina’s chief secretary Salahuddin Ahmed and exposed her role in the case, AFP reported.
“Tulip insisted that her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, allocate land for her mother and siblings, and she herself had three (one for herself and two for her children),” Hasan said. “She called [Ahmed]communicated through several encrypted apps and even met him while she was in Dhaka. ”
The charges are ‘politically motivated’
Hasina and Siddique did not appoint lawyers to defend the charges, which they dismissed as politically motivated.
Hasina, who was sentenced to death in absentia last month for crimes against humanity for her involvement in the crackdown on protesters last year, rejected the sentence in a statement mailed to AFP.
“No country is free of corruption. But corruption needs to be investigated in a way that is not itself corruption. Today, the ACC failed that test,” she said.
Her party, the Awami League, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the verdict was “completely predictable” and that Bangladesh’s anti-corruption watchdog was “a political machine used for political purposes.”
Siddique, the MP for London’s Hampstead and Highgate constituency, has not yet commented publicly but previously dismissed the allegations as a “politically motivated smear”.
She resigned as Britain’s minister for financial services and anti-corruption in January because of her relationship with her aunt, saying the scrutiny surrounding her relationship was becoming “a hindrance to the work of the government”.
His resignation came after Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ethics adviser investigated Mr Siddiq’s relationship with his aunt’s government and found he had not breached the ministerial code, but recommended that Mr Starmer reconsider his responsibilities, the PA media news agency reported.
The UK does not have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
Prosecutor Hassan said authorities would contact the British government through the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding Mr Siddique’s sentence.
Prosecutors said Siddique was being tried as a Bangladeshi national, and authorities said they had obtained the British lawmaker’s Bangladeshi passport, national identity card and tax number, according to the Associated Press.
However, Mr Siddique disputed this claim and said he was a British citizen and did not have Bangladeshi citizenship.
On Thursday, another court sentenced Hasina in absentia to 21 years in prison in a separate case involving the same township project, finding her guilty of illegally securing land for herself and her family in the Dhaka development despite being ineligible.
Hasina’s son and daughter were also sentenced to five years in prison each by a court in one case.
