Ex-City minister Tulip Siddiq has been sentenced two years in jail by a Bangladeshi court after she was found guilty of corruption.
The Labour MP, 43, was found to have unduly influenced her aunt, the country’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
It was alleged she wanted to secure a plot of land for her family on Dhaka’s outskirts – a claim Siddiq strongly denied.
Ms Siddiq – who was the government’s anti-corruption minister – was forced to resign her position in the treasury earlier this year over the allegations.
Political observers in Bangladesh had thought she was ‘highly likely’ to be convicted, as her aunt, Hasina, 78, was found guilty in the same case last week and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Ms Siddiq has always denied the charges, accusing the Bangladeshi authorities of mounting a political witch-hunt against her.
But today’s sentencing means the MP for Hampstead and Highgate is likely to face renewed calls to stand down as a parliamentarian.
Last week, prominent British lawyers and former ministers, led by Cherie Blair KC, signed a joint letter where they said the trial against Ms Siddiq was ‘contrived and unfair.’
Former City Minister Tulip Siddiq is likely to face a 10-year prison sentence on Monday if she is found guilty in a high-profile corruption trial in her native Bangladesh
Ms Siddiq’s aunt Sheikh Hasina (pictured in 2023) was found guilty in the same case last Thursday and sentenced to 23 years in prison
The letter, sent to the Bangladesh High Commissioner to the UK, Abida Islam, added: ‘She [Siddiq] is being tried in her absence without justification and that the proceedings fall far short of standards of fairness recognised internationally.’
Mrs Blair and her co-signatories said: ‘A lawyer in Bangladesh she appointed to represent her was forced to stand down, reporting that he had been placed under house arrest, further informing Ms Siddiq that his daughter had been threatened.’
Ms Siddiq resigned from her position as Economic Secretary to the Treasury after the Daily Mail revealed in December she was being investigated in Bangladesh in a £4billion bribery case.
She and members of her family were accused of siphoning off £4billion from a Russian-built nuclear power plant deal, a claim Ms Siddiq has always denied.
Weeks later, the Mail on Sunday revealed how she lied to the newspaper three years earlier when she told its reporters her parents bought her a flat in London’s King’s Cross, when in fact it was gifted to her by a political ally of her aunt.
An inquiry by the independent watchdog on Ministerial Standards, Sir Lauri Magnus, said Ms Siddiq did not breach the Minister Code, but should have been more alert to the ‘reputational risks’ from her ‘close family’s association with Bangladesh.’
Neither Mrs Blair nor Mr Buckland responded to the MoS, but Mr Grieve said: ‘The letter was based on credible information and evidence made available to us. I have nothing to add about the matter.’
Ms Siddiq declined to comment on the trial or the letter.
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