Labour’s anti-corruption minister is under fresh pressure to quit over her links to Bangladesh’s ousted regime after the new leader of the country intervened in the controversy for the first time.
Muhammad Yunus said that a series of London properties used by Economic Secretary to the Treasury Tulip Siddiq and her family should be investigated and returned to Bangladesh if they are found to have involved ‘robbery’.
Asked if the homes gifted by figures in her aunt’s Awami League party should be looked at as part of a probe recently launched by his country’s Anti-Corruption Commission, the Nobel peace prize-winning economist said: ‘Absolutely.’
He cited a recent report that found the autocratic regime led by her aunt Sheikh Hasina, who has been accused of ‘crimes against humanity’ as well as corruption, had taken billions out pounds out of Bangladesh and used some of the money to buy property.
‘They pointed out how money is stolen, but it’s not stealing – when you steal, you hide it. It’s a robbery,’ Mr Yunus told the Sunday Times.
Asked if that could apply to properties used by members of Hasina’s family in London, with Ms Siddiq and her relatives living in five different addresses over the years that were owned or gifted by Awami League figures, he agreed: ‘Absolutely, it’s about plain robbery. Nothing else.’
He said it was ‘the intention of the interim government’ to work out how to bring the properties back.
‘Because it’s about people’s money. And when I say people it’s not about the billion-dollar people you talk about, [it’s] common people.’
Anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq is under fresh pressure to quit over her links to Bangladesh’s ousted regime
Mr Yunus said it was a ‘big issue’ if a British MP was involved and that he was ‘relieved that you’re bringing this to the attention of the world’.
He said it was an ‘irony’ that Ms Siddiq, 42, had been accused of corruption given her ministerial role.
‘She becomes the minister for anti-corruption and defends herself. Maybe you didn’t realise it, but now you realise it. You say: “Sorry, I didn’t know it [at] that time, I seek forgiveness from the people that I did this and I resign.” She’s not saying that. She’s defending herself.’
Support for Ms Siddiq within the Cabinet also appears to be ebbing away, a week after she was forced to refer herself to the Prime Minister’s Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests.
Asked by Times Radio yesterday if the Government has full confidence in Ms Siddiq, Science Secretary Peter Kyle would only say: ‘We need to wait for the outcome of that inquiry. And so I have full confidence in the process and the country needs to rest assured that we’ve given that commissioner more powers and more independence. So that process must now carry on.’
In a separate interview with Sky News, he insisted that Sir Keir Starmer – a close friend as well as a constituency neighbour of Ms Siddiq – would act on the findings of watchdog Sir Laurie Magnus.
Mr Kyle said: ‘I think the right way to go through this is to allow the authorities to investigate, we have given more powers to those authorities to do independent investigations, and you know full well when it comes to Keir Starmer he will listen to what the authorities say.’
However the Tories say that Ms Siddiq should be removed now as she is unable to carry on her role, having been forced to cancel a planned trip to China because of the furore.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said: ‘Because she is the anti-corruption minister, she has serious charges laid against her now, or serious accusations around corruption, and it’s going to be really impossible for her to do that job under current circumstances.
‘So she should step down, and the Prime Minister needs to get a grip of that.’
Last night it emerged that Labour Party posters and flyers produced by Ms Siddiq have been found in the ruined presidential palace in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, despite her previous insistence that she never discussed politics with her aunt.
Ms Siddiq has insisted: ‘I am clear that I have done nothing wrong.’
London homes at the centre of the storm
£700,000 Kings Cross flat
Tulip Siddiq received this two-bedroom apartment as a gift in 2004 from developer Abdul Motalif, who has links to her aunt. The MP still owns the property and rents it out at more than £10,000 per year, parliamentary records show. When The Mail on Sunday confronted Ms Siddiq about the flat two years ago, she said it had not been a gift but was bought by her parents.
£1.3 million Golders Green house
£1.3m Golders Green house: The Economic Secretary to the Treasury’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, lives rent-free in this smart semi-detached home near Hampstead Heath in north London. The property is owned by the family of billionaire Salman F Rahman, a former minister in the government of Sheikh Hasina, Ms Siddiq’s aunt, who is now being held in custody in Bangladesh accused of ‘crimes against humanity’ and corruption.
£650,000 flat in Hampstead
This three-bedroom flat was home to Ms Siddiq and her husband Christian Percy between 2012 and 2016. It was given to her by her sister Azmina, who received it as a gift in 2009 from Moin Ghani, a Bangladeshi lawyer, who represented their aunt Sheikh Hasina’s government.
£865,000 flat in Golders Green
Ms Siddiq was investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Authority and forced to apologise after failing to declare rental income from this property for 14 months. She and her husband bought it in 2018, paying off the mortgage within five years. They left two years ago.
£2.2m East Finchley house
This semi-detached property is owned by Abdul Karim, an executive member of the UK wing of Ms Siddiq’s aunt’s Awami League. Ms Siddiq and her family moved into it two years ago. She has refused to say how much rent she is paying to Mr Karim, who was granted special status as a ‘Commercially Important Person’ in Bangladesh after she moved in. He is vice-chairman of the Shahjalal Islami Bank, with shares worth £1.2million.
£350,000 flat in Finchley
The apartment in this mansion block was owned by Kazi Zafarullah, a Bangladeshi industrialist who is a member of the Awami League’s central executive committee. The electoral register shows that Ms Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, and her sister Azmina lived at the property in north London between 2009 and 2013.
