Related Articles
Siddiq, financial secretary to the Treasury, was handed a two-bedroom flat close to King’s Cross in 2004 with out making a fee, in accordance to beforehand unreported Land Registry filings.
The filings point out that the donor was Abdul Motalif, a developer and affiliate of individuals linked to Siddiq’s aunt, the deposed former prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, who’s chief of the Awami League social gathering.
The King’s Cross property, which Siddiq nonetheless owns, was bought in January 2001 for £195,000, the filings present. A neighbouring flat within the constructing was offered in August for £650,000.
“Any suggestion that Tulip Siddiq’s possession of this property, or every other property is in any approach linked to help for the Awami League, can be categorically unsuitable,” a spokesperson for the minister mentioned.
Motalif confirmed to the Monetary Occasions in a telephone name that he purchased the King’s Cross property however declined to touch upon what he did with it.
“Following monetary help offered by Tulip’s dad and mom to an acquaintance throughout a difficult time in his life, he subsequently transferred a property he then owned into Tulip’s possession as an act of gratitude for her dad and mom’ help,” mentioned an individual acquainted with the matter.
Particulars of the reward increase contemporary questions on Siddiq’s capacity to distance herself from corruption allegations, having been named in a probe final month by the Anti-Corruption Fee in Bangladesh.
The Bangladeshi investigation got here after a political rival of Sheikh Hasina accused her household, together with Siddiq, of taking a reduce from a Russia-backed nuclear energy venture, claims they’ve denied.
Members of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League are additionally accused of diverting funds from Bangladesh’s banking system to buy properties within the UK, US, United Arab Emirates and Singapore. They’ve denied the allegations.
Siddiq holds a short within the British government that features accountability for measures in opposition to money-laundering and clamping down on illicit finance.
Electoral roll knowledge reveals that Siddiq lived within the King’s Cross flat within the early 2000s and that her siblings resided within the property for a number of years afterwards. Siddiq has declared rental earnings from two flats in her MP’s declaration of monetary pursuits.
Motalif, who’s now 70, lives in south-east London. Firms Home filings present him listed because the proprietor of a now-dissolved small property providers firm.
Electoral roll knowledge reveals that he allowed Moin Ghani, a lawyer who went on to signify the government led by the Awami League and has been photographed with Sheikh Hasina, to reside within the King’s Cross flat earlier than he gave it to Siddiq. Ghani didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The information additionally reveals that Motalif shared a residential tackle in south-east London with Mojibul Islam, the son of a former Awami League MP, between 2014 and 2024.
Motalif and Islam each confirmed that they’d been registered on the south-east London tackle.
In accordance to Land Registry filings, the reward of the King’s Cross property was made earlier than Siddiq turned an MP, that means she was not required to make disclosures about it.
The papers present that, in 2018, Siddiq prolonged the King’s Cross property’s lease for £90,000. She additionally purchased a flat collectively with her husband for £865,000 in her London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate.
Land Registry paperwork point out there’s now no mortgage on both flat.
The particular person acquainted with the matter mentioned that 5 years after Siddiq purchased her constituency flat with her husband, he “paid off the rest of the mortgage utilizing solely the couple’s personal funds”.
Siddiq was reprimanded by parliament’s requirements commissioner final yr after she failed to disclose rental earnings on the constituency flat.
Earlier than turning into an MP in 2015, Siddiq labored for a number of charities and as a guide for Philip Gould Associates, the agency of the late Labour peer and strategist.
Muhammad Yunus, the pinnacle of Bangladesh’s interim government, which took energy in August, has described the Awami League as “fascist”. Rival events and human rights teams have accused it of rigging elections, finishing up extrajudicial killings and capturing state establishments.
Sheikh Hasina final month denied she had ordered safety forces to use deadly drive in opposition to protesters and claimed the allegations in opposition to her had been “false propaganda”.
Downing Road mentioned final month that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “has confidence” in Siddiq, including that she had “denied any involvement within the allegations made” in regards to the Russia-backed nuclear energy plant.
UK government officers additionally mentioned they’d seen no proof of wrongdoing by Siddiq.
Siddiq has been a Labour social gathering member since she was 16. However she additionally labored for a time inside the Awami League’s EU and UK “lobbying unit and election technique group”, in accordance to a Labour blog post that has since been deleted.
UK-based associates of the Awami League have campaigned alongside Siddiq at a number of British normal elections, together with the vote final yr that introduced Labour to energy, in accordance to folks acquainted with the matter.
“Had it not been on your assist. I might by no means have been in a position to stand right here as a British MP,” Siddiq instructed a crowd of the Awami League’s supporters in 2015, shortly after she turned an MP, at an occasion held in London to honour Sheikh Hasina.
Since 2022, Siddiq has rented a £2.1mn London dwelling owned by Abdul Karim, an govt member of the UK wing of the Awami League. She moved into the property exterior her constituency after it was bought in July 2022, in accordance to filings.
An ally of Siddiq mentioned that she was paying “market charges” and that the connection between her and Karim had been declared correctly to the parliamentary authorities.
[ad_2]
