After death penalty, Sheikh Hasina now gets 5-year jail term in corruption case, sister also convicted
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "After death penalty, Sheikh Hasina now gets 5-year jail term in corruption case, sister also convicted")
Sheikh Rehana, sister of former PM Sheikh Hasina Photograph: (AFP)
A Bangladesh court sentenced Sheikh Rehana, sister of former PM Sheikh Hasina, to seven years in prison for corruption over illegal land allocation. Rehana’s daughter and UK MP Tulip Siddiq received two years. The verdict follows wider graft probes as Hasina remains in India after her ouster.
A Bangladesh court sentenced Bangladesh's former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to five years imprisonment on corruption charges. Sheikh Rehana, sister of former premier Sheikh Hasina has also been sentenced to seven years in prison. Along with them, Rehana's daughter Tulip Siddiq, who is a British lawmaker, was handed a two-year sentence in the same case. Fourteen other government officials were condemned to five years of imprisonment. The case pertains to grabbing of lucrative plots in the capital.
Siddiq, who resigned as British anti-corruption minister in January after being named in graft probes in Bangladesh, has called the trial a "persecution and a farce". He called the court proceedings "flawed and farcical."
Meanwhile, Khan Mainul Hasan, prosecutor for the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), said they had details of Siddiq's correspondence with Salahuddin Ahmed, the principal secretary to the then prime minister, exposing her role in the case. "The court has full authority to try any Bangladeshi, whether the person is in the country or abroad," he observed. The interim government would notify the British authorities about Monday's verdict, prosecutors said. There was no immediate reaction from Siddiq or her family.
Sheikh Hasina's after ouster
On Nov 17, the ICT convicted Hasina of crimes against humanity, ruling that she orchestrated a brutal state crackdown in 2024 against the protesting students. The tribunal court sentenced her to death. The trial was held in her absence and the verdict marked the first time a former Bangladeshi leader has been found guilty of such offences.Her party the Awami League not only rejected the verdict but also called the upcoming elections a farce. “As part of that conspiracy, they staged this mockery of a trial in their own manufactured court. The Awami League is not only rejecting the illegal ICT verdict, but is also working at the grassroots, holding discussions with political leaders, stakeholders and people from all walks of life to break the web of plots woven by this occupying force.”
Earlier in October, Hasina confirmed that she is in New Delhi but she would return to her country when a ‘legitimate’ government will be formed. Asked about her return to Dhaka, Hasina, whose father and three brothers were killed in a 1975 military coup, said she lives “freely in Delhi” but “would love to go home” if “law and order genuinely prevailed.” “It’s really not about me or my family. For Bangladesh to achieve the future we all want, there must be a return to constitutional rule and political stability. No single person or family defines our country’s future," Hasina said. “I would of course love to go home, so long as the government there was legitimate, the constitution was being upheld, and law and order genuinely prevailed,” she added.
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