A senior Labour minister is being probed over claims she and her family made billions from a Russian nuclear plant.
Tulip Siddiq is MP for Hampstead and Highgate, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and City Minister. Part of her duties as a minister involve stamping out corruption in the financial sector.
She and her family have been aaccused of pocketing as much as £4 billion in bribes during a nuclear power plant deal.
The family’s native country of Bangladesh is now investigating Siddiq to find evidence of embezzlement in the country, according to MailOnline.
The country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) reportedly launched the probe into Siddiq, her mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq, her cousin Sajeeb Wazed Joy, her uncle Tariq Siddiq, and her aunt Sheikh Hasina Wazed.
Her aunt was formerly the Bangladeshi prime minister but was ousted after being in power for over 15 years, and her uncle is believed to be in hiding in the country.
The ACC investigation comes after an order from Bangladesh High Court after hearing claims Siddiq may have helped « broker » the nuclear deal with Russian state-backed company Rosatom.
The deal, worth £10 billion, was allegedly signed by Vladimir Putin and Hasina in 2013 in the presence of Siddiq while she was a Labour councillor.
The ACC said: « The commission is committed to ensuring transparency and accountability, irrespective of the stature of those involved. »
Siddiq has as yet declined to comment, but an insider source called the allegations « spurious » since they first emerged in America.
Syed Faruk, the UK General Secretary of Hasina’s Awami League Party and a family friend of Siddiq, has strongly denied the allegations, calling it a « politically motivated attack ».
He said: « These stories are fabricated. These are 100% politically motivated attacks against the Hasina family by the current government. They are attacking Tulip because she is the niece of our honourable Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. »
The Labour Party has been approached for comment.
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