Bangladeshi officials testify against former British minister who is niece of deposed prime minister

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladeshi anti-corruption officials testified in court on Wednesday against former British anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq, accusing her of using a family connection to the deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to obtain state-owned land in the South Asian country.

Siddiq, who is Hasina’s niece, resigned from her post in Prime Minister 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.

She is being tried together with her mother, Sheikh Rehana, brother Radwan Mujib and sister Azmina. Siddiq has been charged with facilitating their receipt of state land near the capital, Dhaka. They are out of the country and being tried in absentia.

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

Muhammad Tariqul Islam, a public prosecutor, disputed Siddiq’s claim that she is not Bangladeshi.

The prosecutor said Siddiq could get three to 10 years in prison if convicted.

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Britain’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn Tulip Siddiq speaks during the Labour Party’s annual conference in Manchester, northern England September 23, 2014. Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/REUTERS

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. Hasina had a frosty relation with Yunus, and during her rule Yunus faced a number of cases including for graft allegations. Courts overturned those charges before he took over as interim leader days after Hasina’s ouster last year in a student-led uprising.

Separately, the anti-corruption investigation has alleged that 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.

Associated Press video journalist Al Emrun Garjon in Dhaka, Bangladesh, contributed to the report.