A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to 10 years in prison in two separate corruption cases related to alleged irregularities in the allocation of land for a government housing project.
One of the 16 accused, Khurshid Alam, was tried in person and was present in court when the verdict was pronounced. (AP)Dhaka’s Special Judge’s Court sentenced 79-year-old Hasina to 10 years rigorous imprisonment for influencing the allocation of residential plots to her niece, UK Labor MP and former British minister Tulip Siddique under the Rajuk New Town Project on the outskirts of the capital.
Judge Rabiul Alam also sentenced Hasina’s two nieces and one nephew to different terms of imprisonment.
Siddique’s younger sister, Azman Siddique, and brother Radwan Mujeeb Siddique Babi were sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment, while the ousted prime minister and his relatives were given prison terms after trial in absentia.
The verdict was announced around 12:30 noon.
Only one of the 16 accused, Khurshid Alam, a senior official of the plot allottee Rajuk, was tried in person and was present in court when the verdict was announced.
Among the other defendants in the case, a former junior minister, a former secretary of the ministry, a former chairman of Rajuk and officials of a state-owned organization have been sentenced to five years in prison.
While pronouncing the verdict, the judge said, ‘No matter where the defendants (accused) are in the world, there is no obstacle to their trial.
Hasina’s now-defunct Awami League has characterized the case as “totally presumptive” and “false cases” by the interim government of Muhammad Yunus, while it has earlier called the allegations “fabricated” and “malicious”.
The British lawmaker, on the other hand, said the process was “flawed and farcical from start to finish”.
The BBC quoted him as saying, “I am absolutely amazed by the whole thing – despite a year and a half of malicious allegations being circulated about me by the Bangladeshi authorities I have yet to receive any contact.”
“I have received absolutely no summons, no charge sheet, no correspondence from them – I am not difficult to find, I am a member of Parliament.”
He said he was involved with lawyers in the UK and Bangladesh.
“I think I’m in some kind of Kafkaesque nightmare,” he added.
Hasina’s Awami League government was toppled in violent student-led protests on August 5, 2024, and the interim government has since launched a wide range of legal cases against the former prime minister, her aides and family members.
Earlier, a special tribunal sentenced Hasina, who is in exile in India, to death for crimes against humanity in her brutal attempt to quell the insurgency.
According to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), a court had earlier on November 27 sentenced Hasina to a total of 21 years in jail and her children Sajib Wazed Joy and Saima Wazed Putul to five years each in a separate case related to the Rajuk plot.
