LONDON — British MP Tulip Siddiq has been handed a two-year prison sentence in
Bangladesh in her absence following a corruption trial she did not attend.
Siddiq, a former U.K. minister, was found guilty of influencing her aunt,
Bangladesh’s ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to secure a plot of land for her
family in the outskirts of the capital Dhaka, according to a BBC report of the
trial.
Siddiq, a former U.K. Treasury minister, has strongly denied the claims and is
unlikely to serve the sentence. She is based in London and is the MP for the
London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate.
The case is one of a number launched by prosecutors against Hasina and her
family in Bangladesh. Hasina fled the country last year after more than a decade
in charge. The ex-PM was sentenced to death in a separate trial a fortnight ago.
Siddiq quit as a Treasury minister in January following multiple media reports
— heavily disputed by Siddiq — that she benefited from her family’s rule of
Bangladesh. She said she did not want to be a “distraction” for the government.
In a statement at the start of the trial, Siddiq said prosecutors had “peddled
false and vexatious allegations that have been briefed to the media but never
formally put to me by investigators,” and insisted she had “done nothing wrong.”
“Continuing to smear my name to score political points is both baseless and
damaging,” she added.
A group of senior lawyers, including Britain’s ex-Justice secretary Robert
Buckland, former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, and Cherie Blair, a human
rights lawyer and wife of former prime minister Tony Blair, last week said the
trial had been “contrived and unfair.”
The U.K. does not have an extradition treaty in place with Bangladesh. In a
fresh statement Monday morning, Siddiq slammed what she called a “flawed and
farcical” legal process.
“The outcome of this kangaroo court is as predictable as it is unjustified,” she
said.
“I hope this so called ‘verdict’ will be treated with the contempt it deserves.
My focus has always been my constituents in Hampstead and Highgate and I refuse
to be distracted by the dirty politics of Bangladesh.”