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UK Home Affairs Minister Tulip Siddiq is under fresh pressure to resign, with the opposition leader calling for her sacking after her involvement in a property scandal linked to the ousted government of Bangladesh.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should sack Siddiq, whose role includes an anti-corruption policy, after allegations he benefited from assets linked to the Awami League, the party he led. she is his aunt Sheikh Hasina. Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
“It’s time for Keir Starmer to sack Tulip Siddiq,” Badenoch said post to X on Saturday night. “The Prime Minister tried to make a big commitment to maintain values and integrity. . . His slight lead towards Siddiq suggests that he is not as concerned about loyalty as he claims to be. ”
Earlier this week, Siddiq appeared before Sir Laurie Magnus, the government’s independent adviser on ministerial affairs, after a Financial Times investigation found he was present. given a two-room apartment In London’s King’s Cross in the early 2000s he is a person with Awami League connections.
On Sunday the cabinet minister suggested that Siddiq would be sacked if the investigation found wrongdoing. Science minister Peter Kyle told Sky’s Trevor Phillips: “Research has to go on.
“I think that is the right way. I give it all the space it needs to. I will be listening to the results, as the prime minister.
“It will be an active process, and its results will be held by the Prime Minister and this government, which is a complete contrast to what we have had in the past.”
Siddiq has insisted that he has done nothing wrong and those inside Number 10 have said that so far they have not seen evidence of any breach of ministerial regulations.
The City Minister also resides in several other areas linked to the erstwhile Awami League regime, which was opened last summer following a student-led protest that was initially met with violent repression by security forces that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and Bangladesh’s interim leader, said in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper that assets used by Siddiq should be returned if the minister is found to have benefited from “clear theft”. .
He said: “He becomes the minister of the fight against corruption and defends himself (with London properties). “Maybe you didn’t notice, but now you do. You say: ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know. (at that time) I apologize to the people that I did this and I resign.’ He is defending himself.”
It was Siddiq called in the probe last month by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission after a political rival of Sheikh Hasina accused her family, including Siddiq, of undermining a Russian-backed nuclear power project, allegations they denied.
After taking power in August, Bangladesh’s interim government named Ahsan Mansur, a former IMF official, to lead the country’s central bank and began recovering billions of dollars that the country’s new leaders accused of taken out of the banking system and taken overseas.
In an interview in October, Mansur told the FT that an estimated Tk2tn ($16.7bn) was siphoned out of the country after people linked to the Awami League were forcibly expropriated, using methods such as fake loans and foreign invoices country.
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Agency last week ordered the country’s banks providing transaction information for all reports related to Siddiq and his family, according to people familiar with the matter.
Siddiq’s partner said he only had a UK bank account and no overseas accounts.
Downing Street pointed to Starmer’s words earlier this week when he said he trusted Siddiq and that he had “done the right thing by presenting himself to the independent counsel”.
