UK Anti-Corruption Minister Tulip Siddiq has resigned from her position after being named in graft probes in Bangladesh. The probes were launched when Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina, was ousted as the country’s leader. Siddiq repeated that she had done nothing wrong but acknowledged it would be a distraction to continue in office.
Siddiq, 42, has faced allegations about her links to Hasina, who fled Bangladesh in August after a student-led uprising against her decades-long tenure as prime minister. Hasina, 77, has defied extradition requests to face Bangladeshi charges including mass murder.
The Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission announced Siddiq and family members were subject to another graft probe over an alleged land grab of lucrative plots in a suburb of Dhaka. Family members had already emerged as named targets of the commission’s investigation into accusations of embezzlement of $5 billion connected to a Russian-funded nuclear power plant.
Siddiq’s resignation letter stated her “family connections were a matter of public record” and she acted with “full transparency”. She expressed loyalty to the Labour government and its programme of national renewal. Prime Minister Keir Starmer thanked Siddiq for her work and acknowledged no evidence of financial improprieties on her part had been found, leaving the door open for her to return to politics in the future.
Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/uk-minister-tulip-siddiq-quits-after-being-named-in-probe-against-sheikh-hasina-in-bangladesh-7473943