Court’s verdict to decide Tulip’s UK political career
Staff Reporter:
Former City Minister Tulip Siddiq is bracing for renewed calls to resign from Parliament if a Dhaka court hands her a prison sentence on Monday in a high-profile corruption case that has already toppled her political career in the UK.
The Dhaka Special Judge Court-4 is set to deliver its verdict in a case involving 17 accused, among them former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana, and Siddiq.
Prosecutors allege the group manipulated the allocation of a 10-katha plot in the RAJUK Purbachal New Town Project. Judge Robiul Alam fixed
the judgement date for December 1 after both sides closed arguments last week.
Ms Siddiq, 43, is accused of urging her aunt, the now-ousted Prime Minister Hasina, to secure plots in an exclusive Dhaka neighbourhood for her mother, Sheikh Rehana, and her siblings Radwan and Azmina.
Siddiq, a Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate and a former Treasury minister, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, calling the charges politically motivated.
But political analysts in Bangladesh say the chances of conviction are high. Hasina, 78, was found guilty in the same case on Thursday and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
She is already under a separate death sentence for ordering deadly crackdowns during mass protests that forced her from office last year.
If Siddiq receives the expected 10-year sentence in absentia, pressure is likely to build inside Westminster.
She faced similar demands in January when she stepped down as Economic Secretary to the Treasury after the Daily Mail reported she was under investigation in Bangladesh in a separate £4 billion bribery case linked to a Russian-backed nuclear power plant deal. She has consistently denied that allegation as well.
Her political troubles deepened when the Mail on Sunday later reported that she had misled the paper about the origins of her London flat.
An inquiry by the independent adviser on ministerial standards found she had not broken the ministerial code but urged her to recognise the reputational risks tied to her family’s political dealings in Bangladesh.
Concerns about the fairness of the Dhaka trial have grown in the UK. Last week, a group of prominent British lawyers and former ministers led by Cherie Blair KC sent a letter to Bangladesh’s High Commissioner in London arguing that the proceedings were “contrived and unfair.”
They criticised the trial being held without Siddiq present and said her Bangladeshi lawyer had been forced to withdraw after being placed under house arrest and receiving threats involving his daughter.
The letter’s signatories, including former attorney general Dominic Grieve and ex-justice secretary Robert Buckland, did not comment further when approached. Siddiq also declined to speak about the case or the letter ahead of Monday’s verdict.
With Hasina convicted and political tensions in Bangladesh still raw, the fate of Siddiq now carries significant implications on both sides of the world – for her family’s standing in Dhaka and for her own future in British politics.