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Anti-corruption authorities in Bangladesh have accused former UK Metropolis Minister Tulip Siddiq of utilizing a pretend notary doc in a property switch to her sister, as a part of an investigation into the alleged illegal allocation of state-owned land.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Fee claims Siddiq — the niece of the nation’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina — used her political affect to safe authorities plots in Dhaka’s Purbachal New City venture for herself and her household, benefiting from the illegal allocation of state-owned land.
The company additionally alleges she used a pretend notary to switch a separate flat to her sister, in response to a cost doc launched by the company on Thursday.
The ACC will now submit its costs towards Siddiq to the courtroom, which has to approve earlier than it may possibly convey the case to prosecution, in a course of that’s broadly thought to be a formality.
Siddiq resigned from her UK authorities publish in January after going through political stress following allegations first reported by the Monetary Occasions that she had benefited from properties linked to the Awami League, the social gathering led by her aunt, Sheikh Hasina. She has persistently denied any wrongdoing.
The Anti-Corruption Fee, which has powers to prosecute in addition to examine corruption instances, stated it has drawn up costs towards a number of members of Hasina’s household, together with Siddiq, as a part of a wider investigation into allegations of corruption involving state sources.
The company claims that Hasina and her family members secured authorities land in violation of eligibility guidelines, bypassing normal allocation procedures.
“It’s solely the tip of an iceberg,” company chair Dr Mohammad Abdul Momen informed the FT. “There are much more allegations now below investigation with ACC that can communicate of the colossal dimension of the corruption of the deposed prime minister and her rapid members of the family.”
Hasina’s 15-year rule as Bangladesh’s prime minister, marked by growing authoritarianism, ended final August amid mass protests. Since then, a sequence of allegations involving corruption, land offers, and monetary misconduct involving Hasina’s household have emerged,
The Anti-Corruption Fee contends that 60 katha (roughly one acre) of presidency land within the Purbachal New City venture, a significant residential growth on the outskirts of Dhaka, was unlawfully allotted to Hasina, her kids, and shut members of the family.
Investigators have alleged that Siddiq’s possession of one other property in Dhaka ought to have disqualified her from receiving a plot below the land allocation scheme, however that she and her members of the family manipulated rules to achieve entry to the prime actual property.
This noticed them bypass public lotteries and eligibility standards designed to forestall politically related people from acquiring land meant for civil servants.
As a part of its broader investigation, the ACC additionally claims Siddiq used a fraudulent notary doc to switch possession of a flat in Dhaka’s Gulshan space to her sister, Azmina Siddiq.
Supreme Court docket lawyer Gazi Sirazul Islam, whose seal seems on the doc, denied notarising it, in response to the cost sheet. Whereas the seal bore his identify, he acknowledged, the signature didn’t match his personal.
Islam additionally informed investigators that he solely notarises paperwork inside his regulation chamber and had no prior acquaintance with both Tulip or Azmina Siddiq.
The disputed doc, a Heba deed — an Islamic authorized instrument for gifting property — dates again to 2015, when Siddiq was a Labour MP however earlier than she was a authorities minister. The ACC alleges that the notary fraud was a part of an effort to obscure the true possession of the property.
An in depth ally of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Siddiq stated in January that staying in her function — which included accountability for tackling corruption — can be a distraction from authorities.
Siddiq didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
