A court in the Bangladeshi capital on Thursday ordered authorities to turn to Interpol for the arrest of a British MP accused of corruption linked to a private real estate project, the AP reported.
Tulip Siddiq, a former British minister and member of parliament for Hampstead and Highgate in London, is facing corruption charges in Bangladesh, where an anti-corruption commission is taking legal action against her, the AP reported.
Who is Tulip Siddiq?
Siddiq was born on 16 September 1982 in London, England and is of British-Bangladeshi heritage. She is the niece of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (her mother’s sister, Sheikh Rehana, is Hasina’s sister).
Siddiq has served as the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn since the 2015 general election and, following boundary changes, now represents Hampstead and Highgate (re-elected in 2024).
She held the role of Economic Secretary to the Treasury and Urban Affairs Secretary in the UK Government from 9 July 2024 until her resignation on 14 January 2025.
Siddiq has already been sentenced to six years in prison in Bangladesh in three separate corruption cases, all linked to her powerful aunt, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina was ousted from power in 2024 after a mass student-led uprising ended her 15-year term. He has been living in exile in India since August 5, 2024.
Siddiq has previously denied all allegations against her, calling the sentences a “complete farce” and claiming she is a British citizen, not a Bangladeshi national.
The commission alleged that Siddiq used his connection with Sheikh Hasina to influence the allotment of land to a private company in the upscale Gulshan district of Dhaka.
The order was issued on Thursday by Mohammed Sabbir Faiz, chief special magistrate of Dhaka Metropolitan, on a petition by the anti-corruption watchdog.
This came after the commission’s deputy director, AKM Mortuza Ali Sagar, applied for a red notice through Interpol to help secure her arrest.
Siddiq did not immediately respond on Thursday.
In January last year, Siddiq resigned as a minister in Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government amid mounting pressure over her links to Sheikh Hasina. Although she claimed she was cleared of any wrongdoing, Siddiq said she was resigning from her role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury because the dispute had become a “distraction from the work of government”.
Three days after Hasina’s removal from office, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus assumed the role of interim leader and later oversaw elections held on February 12. A new administration led by Prime Minister Tariq Rahman, the son of Hasina’s main political rival and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, has since taken office.
