British MP Tulip Siddiq sentenced in absentia to two years in prison in Bangladesh graft case

DHAKA: A Bangladesh court sentenced British parliamentarian and former minister Tulip Siddiq in absentia to two years in jail on Monday in a corruption case involving the alleged illegal allocation of a plot of land, prosecutors said.

Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who is Siddiq’s aunt, was sentenced in absentia to five years in jail and her sister Rehana to seven.

All three were fined 100,000 taka ($820.00) each, and failure to pay will result in an additional six months in prison, the court said.

Siddiq, who resigned in January as the UK’s minister responsible for financial services and anti-corruption efforts following scrutiny over financial ties to Hasina, has previously dismissed the allegations as a “politically motivated smear”.

Britain does not have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.

Hasina’s representatives did not respond immediately to a request for comment by Reuters.

Prosecutors said that the land in the capital Dhaka, measuring roughly 13,610 square feet (1,264 square metres), was unlawfully allocated through political influence and collusion with senior officials.

They said the three powerful defendants, Siddiq, Hasina and Rehana, abused their authority to secure the plot during Hasina’s tenure as prime minister.

The land was supposed to be used for a new township to ease housing and population pressure in Dhaka, the court heard.

Fourteen other people also charged in the case were sentenced to five years in prison.

Hasina, who fled to neighbouring India in August 2024 at the height of an uprising against her government, was sentenced to death last month over her government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators during the protests.

Last week, she was handed a combined 21-year prison sentence in other corruption cases.