Bangladesh court sentences ex-PM Sheikh Hasina to 10 years in jail in Rajuk land corruption cases

Bangladesh court sentences ex-PM Sheikh Hasina to 10 years in jail in Rajuk land corruption cases

A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to 10 years in jail in two separate corruption cases related to alleged irregularities in allocations of land in a government housing project.

Dhaka's Special Judge's Court handed 79-year-old Hasina 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for using her official influence in allocating residential plots to others, including her niece, UK Labour MP and former British minister Tulip Siddiq, under the Rajuk New Town Project in Purbachol on the outskirts of the capital.

Judge Robiul Alam simultaneously handed down Hasina's two nieces and a nephew, to different prison terms.

Siddiq's younger sister, Azaman Siddiq and brother Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby were sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment, while the deposed premier and her relatives were handed down the prison terms after trial in absentia.

The judgment was pronounced at around 12.30 pm.

Only one of the 16 accused, a senior official of Rajuk, which allocates the plots, Khurshid Alam, was tried in person and was present at the court as 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 has 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".

"I'm absolutely baffled by the whole thing - I've still had no contact whatsoever from the Bangladeshi authorities despite them spreading malicious allegations about me for a year-and-a-half now," BBC quoted her as saying.

"There's been absolutely no summons sent to me, there's no charge sheet, I've had no correspondence from them - I'm not difficult to find, I'm a parliamentarian."

She said she had engaged lawyers in the UK and Bangladesh.

"I feel like I'm in some sort of Kafkaesque nightmare," she added.

Hasina's Awami League government was toppled in student-led violent protest dubbed July Uprising on August 5, 2024, and since then, the interim government launched a number of wide-ranging legal cases against the ex-premier, her associates and family members.

Earlier, a special tribunal sentenced Hasina, now in exile in India, to death on charges of committing crimes against humanity through brutal efforts to tame the uprising.

On an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) complaint, a court earlier on November 27 sentenced Hasina to 21 years' imprisonment in total, while her children, Sajeeb Wazed Joy and Saima Wazed Putul, each received a 5-year prison sentence in a different case involving Rajuk plots.