A sitting Member of Parliament in the UK, Tulip Siddiq, has been sentenced to two years in prison in Bangladesh following a trial held in her absence. The Labour MP, who represents Hampstead and Highgate, was found guilty of corruption allegations stemming from her ties to her aunt, the recently ousted former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The court in Dhaka also imposed a fine of 100,000 Bangladeshi Taka (approximately $821 or £620); failure to pay will result in an additional six months being added to the sentence. Siddiq, who is based in London and strongly denies all charges, is highly unlikely to serve the sentence. The UK does not have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
The charges centered on accusations that Siddiq, a former Treasury minister, used her influence to secure a plot of land outside Dhaka for her mother, sister, and brother—Rehana, Azmina, and Radwan Siddiq—by leveraging her relationship with then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The case was brought by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
Siddiq was tried as a Bangladeshi citizen, with prosecutors claiming to have her Bangladeshi passport, ID, and tax number. However, her lawyers have publicly disputed her citizenship status, stating she has not held a Bangladeshi passport since childhood and has “never had” a voter or national ID card.
The trial began in August, subsequent to the overthrow of the Hasina regime in July 2024. Siddiq had resigned from her junior ministerial role in January to avoid creating a “distraction” for the UK government amidst controversy over her family connections.
Legal experts and senior politicians in the UK have expressed serious concerns about the fairness of the trial process. A group of signatories, including former UK Justice Secretary Robert Buckland and human rights lawyer Lady Cherie Blair, raised these issues with Bangladesh’s representative in the UK.
They argued in a letter that Siddiq was not afforded proper legal representation, describing the process as “artificial and a contrived and unfair way of pursuing a prosecution.”
This verdict against Siddiq comes amid a wide-ranging legal crackdown against Sheikh Hasina, her family members, and associates following her ouster.
Just two weeks ago, Hasina herself was sentenced to death in a separate trial, also held in her absence, for crimes against humanity related to the brutal crackdown on protests that led to her removal. She was found guilty over the deaths of an estimated 1,400 people. Last week, Hasina was also handed a 21-year prison sentence alongside her two children in a separate land deal case.
Siddiq still faces multiple outstanding charges in Bangladesh, including two ongoing trials related to the same land deal allegations and an investigation concerning the alleged fraudulent transfer of a lucrative flat in Dhaka to her sister. The family is also being investigated over embezzlement claims related to a £3.9 billion nuclear power plant deal from 2013.
The Awami League, Hasina’s political party, predictably rejected the verdict as “entirely predictable” and lacking judicial fairness, claiming the judiciary is now controlled by the interim government headed by Dr. Muhammed Yunus.
