Bangladeshi anti-corruption officials testified in court on Wednesday against former British Minister Tulip Siddiq, accused of using her familial connection to deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to obtain state-owned land plots in the South Asian country, Associated Press reported.
Siddiq, who is Hasina’s niece, resigned from her post as an anti-corruption minister in Prime Minister Keir Starmer ’s government in January following reports that she lived in London properties linked to her aunt and was named in an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh.
She is being tried together with her mother, Sheikh Rehana, brother, Radwan Mujib, and sister, Azmina. Siddiq has been charged with facilitating their receipt of state land in a township project near the capital, Dhaka. The four were indicted earlier and asked to appear in court, however, the prosecution said they absconded and would be tried in absentia, according to Associated Press.