UK lawmaker Tulip Siddiq handed jail sentence in absentia in Bangladesh graft case

A Bangladesh court sentenced British lawmaker and former minister Tulip Siddiq in absentia to two years in prison on Monday over a corruption case involving the alleged unlawful allocation of a plot of land, prosecutors said. Siddiq, the niece of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, called the trial “flawed and farcical.”
Hasina was sentenced in absentia to five years, while her sister Rehana received a seven-year sentence. The three were each fined 100,000 taka (around $820), with non-payment carrying an additional six-month prison term. The land, covering roughly 13,610 square feet in Dhaka, was intended for a new township to ease housing and population pressures. Prosecutors said it had been allocated through political influence and collusion with senior officials.
Siddiq’s Labour Party said she had no access to a fair legal process and was not informed of the charges, adding that the verdict should not be recognised. Britain does not have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
The sentences follow a series of convictions against Hasina, who fled to India in August 2024 amid a nationwide uprising and was recently sentenced to death over her government’s crackdown on protests. Her Awami League party described the latest verdict as politically motivated, led by Bangladesh’s interim government under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.