Bangladesh’s former prime minister
Sheikh Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana and Hasina’s niece and British MP Tulip Siddiq were on Monday sentenced to different terms of imprisonment for ‘irregularities’ in allocation of plots under the Purbachal New Town project.
Judge Rabiul Alam of Dhaka Special Judge Court-4 pronounced the verdict. Hasina, already sentenced to death for crimes against humanity, was handed five years’ imprisonment, while Rehana got seven years and Tulip Siddiq two years of jail.
The court found Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, guilty of misusing her “special influence” as a British politician to coerce Hasina into giving valuable pieces of land to her mother and siblings.
Bangladesh does not have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom (UK), and it is unlikely Siddiq will serve the sentence. The Labour party said it was not recognising the corruption judgment against Siddiq because she was denied the opportunity to a fair legal process in the case.
Siddiq had denied the charges, claiming that much of the evidence being presented by prosecutors was forged. She had been put on trial as a Bangladeshi citizen, with a passport and tax ID, even though she said she had not held a Bangladeshi passport since childhood and had never paid taxes there.
Siddiq said, “This whole process has been flawed and farcical from the beginning to the end.” “The outcome of this kangaroo court is as predictable as it is unjustified. 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 politics of Bangladesh,” the Guardian quoted her as saying.
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