A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule.
The Bangladeshi 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 Dhaka, the capital.
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 Prothom Alo newspaper reported.
Photo: AP
Siddiq, the Hampstead and Highgate member of parliament, who quit as economic secretary to the Treasury in January, 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.
Tulip Siddiq faces a number of allegations of corruption involving her family in Bangladesh, but Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League said that the charges are politically motivated to destroy the reputation of the prominent family.
Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s independence leader. The nation gained independence in 1971 under his leadership after a nine-month war against Pakistan.
Hasina has been in exile in India since early August last year.
After the ouster of Hasina on Aug. 5 last year, Tulip 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. The BBC quoted Tulip Siddiq’s lawyers as saying that the charges against Siddiq were “politically motivated.”
Tulip Siddiq, who had been responsible for tackling corruption in financial markets, was named in December last year in an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh against Hasina. The investigation alleged that Tulip 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.
Tulip Siddiq quit as economic secretary to the treasury in January amid controversy. She said she had been cleared of wrongdoing, but that the issue was becoming “a distraction from the work of the government.”
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS