Tulip Siddiq brands corruption trial in Bangladesh a ‘farce' as case opens
Tulip Siddiq, who resigned in January as Treasury minister, said the case being heard in Dhaka was 'built on fabricated accusations and driven by a clear political vendetta'.
Ms Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, is the niece of the former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheika Hasina, who fled the country in August last year after ruling for 15 years.
Ms Hasina had previously held the post for five years and she is the daughter of Bangladesh's founding president.
She was ousted amid student-led protests that were met with violence by government forces, which saw nearly 300 people killed. She is now exiled in India.
In April, it was reported that Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission had sought an arrest warrant for Ms Siddiq over allegations the MP for Hampstead and Highgate illegally received a 7,200sq ft plot of land in the country's capital.
Bangladeshi anti-corruption officials gave evidence in court on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.
Ms Siddiq has claimed she has not had any official communication about the trial.
In a post on X on Wednesday as the case got under way, Ms Siddiq said: 'The so-called trial now under way in Dhaka is nothing more than a farce – built on fabricated accusations and driven by a clear political vendetta.
'Over the past year, the allegations against me have repeatedly shifted, yet I have never been contacted by the Bangladeshi authorities once.
'I have never received a court summons, no official communication, and no evidence.
'If this were a genuine legal process, the authorities would have engaged with me or my legal team, responded to our formal correspondence, and presented the evidence they claim to hold.
'Instead, they have peddled false and vexatious allegations that have been briefed to the media but never formally put to me by investigators.
'Even my offer to meet Bangladesh's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus during his recent visit to London was refused. Such conduct is wholly incompatible with the principles of a fair trial that we uphold in the UK.
'I have been clear from the outset that I have done nothing wrong and will respond to any credible evidence that is presented to me. Continuing to smear my name to score political points is both baseless and damaging.'
The MP had resigned in January after six months in Government after an investigation by the Prime Minister's ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus into her links to Ms Hasina's regime.
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She came under scrutiny over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt's allies. She stepped down and said she had become 'a distraction' from Labour's agenda.
Campaigners from her aunt's party, the Awami League, had campaigned and canvassed for her during previous general elections.
In an interview with the Guardian before the trial began, Ms Siddiq said she had been 'collateral damage' in the long-standing feud between Mr Yunus and Ms Hasina.
She said: 'These are wider forces that I'm battling against… There's no doubt people have done wrong things in Bangladesh, and they should be punished for it. It's just I'm not one of them.'
After an outcry over the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people demonstrating against what they said was an increasingly autocratic and cruel administration, Ms Hasina and Siddiq's mother, Sheikh Rehana, who was in the country at the time, fled the Bangladeshi capital in a military helicopter to India.
It was, Ms Siddiq admits, a scary time. Ms Hasina's entire family, apart from her husband, children and sister, were murdered during the August 15 1975 Bangladeshi coup d'etat in which Ms Siddiq's grandfather, the first president of Bangladesh, was assassinated.
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