B’desh deposed PM Hasina, relatives sentenced to jail in corruption cases

Dhaka: A Bangladesh court Monday sentenced deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to a total of 10 years’ imprisonment and her niece, British lawmaker Tulip Siddiq, to four years in jail, in two corruption cases related to irregularities in allocations of land in a housing project.

Judge Robiul Alam of Dhaka Special Judge Court-4 also sentenced UK Labour MP and former British minister Tulip’s sister Azmina Siddiq and brother Radwan Mujib Siddiq to seven years in jail each.

Hasina, 78, was sentenced to five years in jail each in two separate cases for using her official influence in allocating residential plots to others, including Tulip, under the Rajuk New Town Project in Purbachol on the outskirts of the capital.

Hasina and her relatives were handed down prison terms after trial in absentia.

The court also fined them one lakh Taka each in each of the cases, directing them to suffer six months’ additional imprisonment in default of payment. Only one of the 16 accused, a senior official of Rajuk, which allocates the plots, was tried in person and was present at the court when the verdict was delivered.

The other accused in the case were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, including a former junior minister for housing, a former secretary of the ministry, a former Rajuk chairman and officials of the state-run entity. “The trial of the accused was not obstructed regardless of where they (accused) were in the world,” the judge said while delivering the verdict.

Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League labelled the sentences as “entirely predictable” and “false cases” staged by Muhammad Yunus’ interim government, while it earlier called the charges “Fabricated” and “Malicious”. The British lawmaker, on the other hand, said the process had been “flawed and farcical from the beginning to the end”.