The Labour MP Tulip Siddiq has said she has become “collateral damage” in a struggle for power before the start of her corruption trial in Bangladesh.
Anti-corruption authorities in Bangladesh have accused Siddiq of improperly being allocated land in Dhaka, the capital, when the country was run by her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted as prime minister last year and replaced by Muhammad Yunus.
On Thursday two Bangladeshi courts formally indicted 27 people, including Siddiq, her aunt and other family members, and current and former officials. A trial is expected to start on Monday but Siddiq, the former anti-corruption minister, told The Guardian she had no plans to attend.
Tulip Siddiq, her aunt Sheikh Hasina, who was the Bangladeshi prime minister at the time, and President Putin in 2013
MIKHAIL METZEL/AP
She said: “I’m yet to see a summons … I’m supposedly days away from a showcase trial in a foreign country, and I still don’t know what the charges are.
“I feel a bit like I’m trapped in this Kafkaesque nightmare where I’ve been put on trial and I genuinely haven’t found out what the allegations are.”
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The charges are understood to relate to alleged irregularities in the allocation of plots of land in the Purbachal new town project, a development programme operated by the government agency Rajuk.
Siddiq, 42, who was forced to resign as anti-corruption minister this year, has always denied wrongdoing and accused the Bangladeshi authorities of a “targeted and baseless” campaign against her.
“I’m collateral damage, because of this feud between Muhammad Yunus and my aunt,” she said. “These are wider forces that I’m battling against.”
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Hasina, who is in India, also faces trial in absentia in Bangladesh, for crimes against humanity. “I’m not here to defend my aunt,” Siddiq said.
The MP for Hampstead & Highgate was forced to resign from Labour’s front bench in January after an investigation by the independent adviser on ministerial standards found her family’s links with the Hasina regime exposed the UK government to “reputational risks”.
In an interview published over the weekend, she appeared irritated at the rebuke. “I can’t help who my aunt is at the end of the day,” she said.
Lawyers representing Siddiq said in a statement: “For nearly a year, the Bangladesh authorities have been making false allegations against Tulip Siddiq. Ms Siddiq has not been contacted or received any official communication from the court and does not and has never owned any land in Purbachal.”
Siddiq referred herself to the ministerial standards adviser in January after reports that she had lived in London properties with links to Hasina, who fled to Delhi from Bangladesh after mass protests in August last year.
Siddiq had initially claimed that a £650,000 flat in King’s Cross in London was given to her by her parents. It later transpired, however, that the flat had been paid for by Abdul Motalif, a developer and associate of figures in the Awami League, Hasina’s party.
The Anti-Corruption Commission in Bangladesh has named Siddiq in two other inquiries, accusing her of benefiting from a nuclear power plant deal with Russia and of money laundering.