A Bangladesh court has sentenced British MP and former minister Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail, in a corruption case involving the alleged illegal allocation of a plot of land.
Siddiq, who serves as an MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London, had denied the allegations and the trial was conducted in her absence.
The court also sentenced her aunt, ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, to five years in prison. Last month Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Dhaka for crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.
On Monday, Rabiul Alam, the judge of Dhaka’s special judge’s court, said Hasina misused her power as prime minister, while Siddiq was guilty of corruptly influencing her aunt in helping her mother get a piece of land in a government project. Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, was given seven years in prison and was considered the prime participant in the case.
Last week a group of leading lawyers including a former Conservative justice secretary told Bangladesh’s ambassador that the trial against Siddiq has been “contrived and unfair”.
Hasina has been in exile in India since she was ousted by a mass uprising last year. The trial and others against her were conducted in absentia.
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