UK minister Tulip Siddiq resigns over alleged financial links with Sheikh Hasina

BRITISH minister Tulip Siddiq, who was responsible for financial services and fighting corruption, resigned on Tuesday (13) after weeks of questions over her financial ties to her aunt Sheikh Hasina, ousted last year as prime minister of Bangladesh.

In her resignation letter to prime minister Keir Starmer, she said the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Laurie Magnus, confirmed that she had not breached ministerial rules after reviewing the matter.

Starmer said in a letter to Siddiq published by his office: "In accepting your resignation, I also wish to be clear that Sir Laurie Magnus as Independent Adviser has assured me he found no breach of the Ministerial Code and no evidence of financial improprieties on your part."

Earlier, Bangladesh chief adviser Muhammad Yunus had in a newspaper interview called for an investigation into the properties of Siddiq and her family, indicating that they may have acquired them through unlawful means during Hasina's tenure.

In an interview with the Times newspaper, Yunus condemned the use of properties gifted to Siddiq and her family by “allies of her aunt’s deposed regime”.

He demanded the return of the assets to Bangladesh if she is found to have benefited from "plain robbery".

Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission has filed a case against Hasina and her wider family over an alleged large-scale land grab of lucrative plots in a suburb of the capital, Dhaka. (Agencies)