According to its chief on Monday, Bangladesh’s anti-graft commission has brought charges against former leader Sheikh Hasina and her family, including a senior UN official and a minister in the British government.
Hasina, 77, escaped a revolution in August 2024 and fled to India, where she has refused to be extradited from Bangladesh and is accused of mass murder.
An alleged widespread land grab of profitable plots in a suburb of the heavily populated metropolis Dhaka is connected to the cases.
Akhter Hossain, director general of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), told reporters, “Sheikh Hasina, in cooperation with certain officials, allocated plots for herself and her family members.”
According to Hossain, Hasina’s niece, British anti-corruption politician Tulip Siddiq, is also among those named in the investigation. Saima Wazed, Hasina’s daughter, is named as the head of the World Health Organization’s South East Asia division.
Wazed did not say anything right away.
Both Hasina’s sister Sheikh Rehana, Siddiq’s mother, and her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy are named.
This month, Siddiq reported herself to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s standards adviser. Following reports in the British publications The Sunday Times and Financial Times that she had resided in homes connected to Hasina’s government, the referral was made.
In December, Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission also began an investigation into claims that Hasina’s family embezzled $5 billion related to a nuclear power plant that was funded by Russia. The $12.65 billion Rooppur nuclear reactor is the subject of the kickback claims.
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