Bangladesh court issues arrest warrant for British MP linked to
ex-premier Sheikh Hasina
[April 14, 2025]
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A judge in Bangladesh issued an
arrest warrant for British lawmaker and former government minister Tulip
Siddiq, a niece of Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who
was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year
rule.
The country’s official Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating
allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including
Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near
the capital, Dhaka.
Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the
order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
by the Anti-Corruption Commission, the leading Dhaka-based
Bengali-language Prothom Alo newspaper reported.
Siddiq, 42, was named in the arrest warrant along with more than 50
others including her mother, Sheikh Rehana, and her brother, Radwan
Siddiq, the newspaper reported.
Siddiq’s lawyers said the charges against Siddiq were baseless and
“politically motivated.”
“Ms. Siddiq knows nothing about a hearing in Dhaka relating to her and
she has no knowledge of any arrest warrant that is said to have been
issued,” law firm Stephenson Harwood said in a statement.
“To be clear, there is no basis at all for any charges to be made
against her, and there is absolutely no truth in any allegation that she
received a plot of land in Dhaka through illegal means," it added.
The lawmaker, who represents the north London district of Hampstead and
Highgate in Parliament, served in Britain’s center-left Labour Party
government as economic secretary to the Treasury — the minister
responsible for tackling financial corruption.
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From front left, Tulip Siddiq, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend a signing
ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 15, 2013. (AP
Photo/Mikhail Metzel, Pool, File)
She quit that post in January after she was named in an
anti-corruption investigation into Hasina and her family in
Bangladesh. The investigation alleged that Siddiq’s family was
involved in brokering a 2013 deal with Russia for a nuclear power
plant in Bangladesh in which large sums of money were said to have
been embezzled.
Siddiq said in January that she had been cleared of wrongdoing, but
that the issue was becoming “a distraction from the work of the
government.”
Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League party says the charges are
politically motivated to destroy the reputation of the prominent
family. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is Bangladesh’s
independence leader. The country gained independence in 1971 under
his leadership after a nine-month war against Pakistan.
Hasina has been in exile in India since early August.
After the ouster of Hasina on Aug. 5 last year, Siddiq’s mother’s
home in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan area was looted and vandalized, and
so far no police case has been filed over the incident. Hasina
accused Bangladesh's interim administration headed by Nobel Peace
laureate Muhammad Yunus of backing mobs to attack her followers
across the country. The home affairs adviser says they are trying to
restore order in the country.
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