Former City minister Tulip Siddiq has complained of living in a “Kafkaesque nightmare” after she was handed a two-year jail sentence in a Bangladeshi trial she branded a “kangaroo court”.
In a ruling on Monday, a judge in Bangladesh found the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate guilty of abusing the “special influence” she had as a British politician over the country’s former prime minister – and her aunt – Sheikh Hasina.
The ruling found Siddiq coerced Hasina – who was deposed after protests broke out across the south Asian country objecting to a freedom of speech crackdown – into handing prime real estate to her mother and siblings that had been obtained illegally.
Sheikh Rehana – Siddiq’s mother – was handed a seven-year prison sentence alongside the Labour politician in a trial held in absentia. A week earlier Hasina was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity relating to her role clamping down on the protests as part of the same series of prosecutions.
Siddiq launched a staunch denial of the charges, branding the legal process “flawed and farcical from the beginning to the end”.
“The outcome of this kangaroo court is as predictable as it is unjustified,” she added. “I hope this so-called ‘verdict’ will be treated with the contempt it deserves.”
Last week, former Conservative justice secretaries David Gauke and Robert Buckland, and the ex-attorney general Dominic Grieve, all voiced concerns over the fairness of Siddiq’s trial. Writing to the Bangladeshi high commissioner, the group of lawyers, which also included Cherie Blair KC and Philippe Sands KC, argued the trial’s legal process was “artificial and contrived“.
Siddiq: Bangladesh PM ‘should be ashamed of himself’
In comments to Sky News, Siddiq said she had tried to speak with Bangladesh’s interim prime minister, professor Muhammad Yunus, when he visited the UK in June but he “didn’t engage with [her] requests”.
“This is unfair, because the whole thing has been flawed from the beginning,” she added. “So my message to the Bangladeshi authorities and to professor Muhammad Yunus is that he should be ashamed of himself.”
Siddiq is not expected to have to serve the sentence as the UK does not have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
The verdict comes almost a year after allegations first emerged of the close relationship Siddiq had with her aunt and she was named in an anti-corruption probe in her home country. The MP, whose north London constituency neighbours Keir Starmer’s, resigned from her position as City minister in January several weeks after questions were first raised over her involvement with Hasina’s Awami League party.
She also lived in a home given to her family by a Hasina ally, and currently lives in a £2.1m flat owned by another Awami League member.