Bangladeshi anti-corruption officials give evidence against UK MP Tulip Siddiq

Bangladeshi anti-corruption officials have given evidence in court against former British anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq, accusing her of using a family connection to deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina to obtain state-owned land in the South Asian country.

Ms Siddiq, who is Ms Hasina’s niece, resigned from her post in Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Government in January following reports that she lived in London properties linked to her aunt and was named in an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh.

The Labour MP represents the north London district of Hampstead and Highgate and served as economic secretary to the Treasury – the minister responsible for tackling financial corruption.

She is being tried together with her mother, Sheikh Rehana, brother Radwan Mujib and sister Azmina.

Ms Siddiq has been charged with facilitating their receipt of state land in a township project near the capital Dhaka.

They are out of the country and being tried in absentia.

Ms Siddiq’s lawyers have called the charges baseless and politically motivated.

Muhammad Tariqul Islam, a public prosecutor, disputed a claim by Ms Siddiq that she is not Bangladeshi, saying the anti-corruption watchdog through investigations found that she is a citizen.

The prosecutor said if Ms Siddiq is convicted she could be sentenced to three to 10 years in prison.

Ms Siddiq in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian recently referred to Bangladesh as “a foreign country” and called the charges against her “completely absurd”.

She asserted to The Guardian she was “collateral damage” in the longstanding feud between her aunt and Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus.

Ms Hasina had a frosty relation with Mr Yunus, and during her rule Mr Yunus faced a number of cases including for graft allegations.

Courts overturned those charges before he took over as interim leader days after Ms Hasina’s ousting last year in a student-led uprising.

Separately, the anti-corruption investigation has alleged that Ms Siddiq’s family was involved in brokering a 2013 deal with Russia for a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh in which large sums of money were said to have been embezzled.