British lawmaker Tulip gets 2-year jail term in Bangladesh plot scam

DHAKA, Bangladesh

A Dhaka court on Monday sentenced British lawmaker Tulip Siddiq to two years in prison for allegedly obtaining a government plot in an upscale area by abusing her position and family ties, according to the court ruling.

Tulip, a former UK treasury minister and niece of the ousted fugitive Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, received the verdict in absentia. She has denied the wrongdoing.

Hasina’s government was ousted last year when she fled to India on Aug. 5.

Judge Md. Rabiul Alam of Dhaka’s Special Judge’s Court-4 announced the verdict. Tulip was also fined Taka 100,000 ($821), with six months of non-commissioned imprisonment in case of non-payment.

The court sentenced Hasina to five years in prison and her sister Sheikh Rehana to seven years in the same case, which involved alleged irregularities in obtaining plots from the Dhaka city development authority RAJUK under the Purbachal New Town project. Fourteen other accused received five-year prison terms each.

The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the plot-allocation cases in January, alleging that Tulip unlawfully obtained government land through RAJUK by using her authority as a British MP and her relationship with Hasina, and that she helped her siblings obtain plots under the same housing project.

In a separate case, a special court in Dhaka on Nov. 27 sentenced Hasina, 78, to 21 years in prison in three corruption cases tied to alleged irregularities in allocating plots in the New Town project.

On Nov. 17, the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Hasina and former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death in a case involving crimes against humanity during what prosecutors described as a crackdown on a student-led movement.

A UN report cited in the proceedings said about 1,400 people were killed and 20,000 injured in the uprising.