A Labour minister is being investigated over claims she and members of her family took bribes of up to £4 billion.
City minister Tulip Siddiq – who is responsible for stamping out corruption in Britain’s financial sector – is being investigated for the alleged embezzlement linked to a nuclear power plant deal in her native Bangladesh.
The country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) launched the probe into Ms Siddiq, her UK-based mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq, and her aunt, Sheikh Hasina Wazed – the ousted former prime minister of Bangladesh who ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 15 years.
Hasina fled Bangladesh to India in August with Rehana at her side after weeks of violent protests in which security forces killed hundreds of civilians.
The investigation was launched after an order from the country’s High Court, which heard claims that Tulip Siddiq may have helped to ‘broker’ the nuclear deal, worth £10 billion in total.
The power plant was built by a Russian state-backed company called Rosatom, and the deal was signed inside the Kremlin back in 2013 by Hasina and Vladimir Putin in the presence of Ms Siddiq, who was then a Labour councillor.
The ACC is also probing other members of Ms Siddiq’s family, including her maternal cousin, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who lives in the US, and her paternal uncle Tariq Siddiq, who is believed to be hiding in Bangladesh. They were named in the court papers.
An ACC official said yesterday: ‘The commission is committed to ensuring transparency and accountability, irrespective of the stature of those involved.’
Tulip Siddiq pictured with prime minister Keir Starmer. The senior Labour minister is being investigated over claims that she and members of her family have taken bribes of up to £4billion in a nuclear power plant deal
Russian President Vladimir Putin (centre), former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (left) and Tulip Siddiq MP (far left) attend the signing ceremony in the Kremlin on Jan 15, 2013
Last night, Ms Siddiq declined to comment, but a source close to her said the allegations, which first emerged on an American website, were ‘spurious’.
Syed Faruk, the UK general-secretary of Hasina’s Awami League party and a family friend of Ms Siddiq, said: ‘These stories are fabricated.
‘These are 100 per cent politically motivated attacks against the Hasina family by the current government.
‘They are attacking Tulip because she is the niece of our honourable prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.’
The bribes probe is the latest controversy surrounding Ms Siddiq since she became City minister in July.
Within weeks, she was investigated by Parliamentary Standards after The Mail on Sunday revealed she did not declare rental income for a London property for almost 14 months.
Parliamentary rules require members to declare such incomes within 28 days.
The Minister – whose official title is Economic Secretary to the Treasury – apologised and was cleared by the commissioner who accepted the mistake was ‘inadvertent’.
In August, the same newspaper revealed how Ms Siddiq moved into a £2 million five-bedroom house two years ago, which she rented from a political ally of her then-PM aunt.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury Tulip Siddiq meet senior bank leaders to discuss investment in the UK ahead of the International Investment Summit on 14 October
The latest probe into Ms Siddiq and her family comes after Bobby Hajjaj, a Bangladeshi opposition politician, filed a High Court petition in September.
It was made in response to various articles in the Bangladeshi media, quoted in the court papers, that alleged Ms Siddiq and her family took bribes in the nuclear deal.
The deal to build the Rooppur nuclear power plant in Ishwardi Upazila, 128 miles north-west of the capital Dhaka, was signed between Hasina and Putin in 2013 in a grand ceremony in the Kremlin where Ms Siddiq, her mother Rehana, 69, and the minister’s younger sister, Azmina, 34, were present.
A beaming Ms Siddiq and her family even posed for photos with the Russian leader afterwards.
The Bangladeshi media reports were triggered by an article on a US-based news website called Global Defense Corp, which detailed how the £4 billion was siphoned off by Ms Siddiq and her family members, the writ claims.
The writ adds: ‘The respondent No 13 [Ms Siddiq] is a British Member of Parliament and the niece of the respondent No 10 [Hasina].
‘She was instrumental in managing the affairs and co-ordinating meetings with Russian government officials regarding the Rooppur nuclear power plant project.’
The documents further allege that 90 per cent of the £10 billion cost of the power plant was met by a loan from the Kremlin to the Hasina government, but £4 billion was embezzled by the Hasina family ‘in collusion with Russian officials’, through Malaysian banks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in a ceremony marking the delivery of Russian nuclear fuel to the first power unit of the Rooppur NPP in Bangladesh in October 2023
The documents say: ‘It is alleged that the respondent No 13 [Ms Siddiq] along with respondent No 10 [Hasina] and other family members, received 30 per cent of the embezzled funds in exchange for their mediation.’
The papers claim that up to £709 million was siphoned out of Bangladesh through a ‘fake’ company called Prachhaya Ltd ‘to different countries including the United Kingdom’.
Hasina’s rule was characterised by human rights violations, extra-judicial killings and disappearances of political opponents, with groups such as Amnesty highlighting the abuses in their reports.
A Bangladeshi court issued an arrest warrant for her, and her son Sajeeb Wazed said last month his mother was ready to face trial and ‘has done nothing wrong’.
But since Hasina was ousted, various court papers have been lodged citing her and her family members over the murders as well as other corruption issues.
Ms Siddiq has in the past praised her aunt as a ‘role model’, but has not publicly commented on her ousting in August.
However, the Treasury minister’s connections with her aunt’s hardline political party, the Awami League, go back more than a decade, as she once worked as its British spokesman.
Joe Robertson, the Tory MP for Isle of Wight East, said: ‘It is clear that there are serious questions that demand answers – what is the minister’s involvement?
Ms Siddiq has in the past praised her aunt as a ‘role model’, but has not publicly commented on her ousting in August
‘What exactly is the nature of these allegations, and how can she possibly continue in post while under such a serious investigation?’
The Treasury, Labour Party and Ms Siddiq declined to comment, but a source said she had not been contacted about the matter.
Last night, Rosatom could not be contacted. But it has said previously: ‘Rosatom rejects the provocative news published and circulated in the media regarding unethical financial transactions in the Rooppur nuclear power plant project.
‘We are committed to transparent working practices, strict anti-corruption policies, and openness in all procurement processes.
‘We view the false information published and circulated in the media as an attempt to discredit the project, which is vital for addressing Bangladesh’s electricity shortage.’