When London and Dhaka Collide: A Family, a Courtroom, and the Strange New Geography of Politics
On a wet morning in Hampstead, Tulip Siddiq walked the quiet streets of her London constituency, children bundled in pushchairs, the smell of fresh bread from a nearby bakery drifting through the mist.
Thousands of miles away, in the swelter and press of Dhaka’s legal quarter, judges in a special court read sentences that echoed across continents. The names were the same; the worlds, shockingly different. What began as a local corruption case in Bangladesh became, overnight, a story about diaspora politics, legal reach, and the fragile line between accountability and political theatre.
A sentence, and a thousand questions
Last week, a Special Judge’s Court in Dhaka announced prison terms in a case that entwined three women from the same family: an MP in the United Kingdom, a former prime minister, and a figure considered central to the land deal at issue. The court said Tulip Siddiq was given two years for allegedly using her influence to secure land through a government project; her aunt, the former prime minister, was sentenced to five years and — according to separate rulings published last month — had also faced a death sentence in an unrelated trial that accused her of ordering a brutal crackdown on campus protests.
The details are dizzying. Siddiq, who represents Hampstead and Highgate in Westminster, was tried in absentia. So were the others. Her mother, Sheikh Rehana, was reported to have been handed a seven-year term and was described by the court as the principal participant in the deal. The judgments, the court said, were handed down after prosecutors alleged misuse of public power and corrupt influence.
It is essential to note how sharply contested every line of this story is. Siddiq’s legal team calls the charges “baseless and politically motivated.” Speaking to a British newspaper earlier this year, she dismissed the accusations as “completely absurd,” and told friends she felt like “collateral damage” in a bitter power struggle playing out back home.
Two cities, two realities
In Hampstead, neighbours say Siddiq is the sort of MP who knows the baker, who pops into community meetings and whose children sometimes play in the park. “She’s one of us,” said Meera Chopra, a local community organiser. “It’s hard to square the woman who came to our Eid event with these headlines.”
In Dhaka, the scene outside the courthouse was entire theatre: throngs of supporters, jostling television crews, and the low murmur of rickshaw drivers offering their take. “People here are tired of elites getting away with things,” said Rahim Hossain, a tea stall owner who has watched public trials since the transition of power. “But others say courts are being used as instruments. We don’t know whom to believe.”
How did the case reach across borders?
A key practical point: the United Kingdom currently has no formal extradition treaty with Bangladesh. That fact has created a liminal space where legal pronouncements in one country can have enormous political and reputational effects on figures who live safely—sometimes literally—beyond reach.
Earlier this year Siddiq resigned from a ministerial role in the UK Treasury after an inquiry by the prime minister’s ethics adviser examined her ties to Bangladesh’s political elite. Laurie Magnus, the adviser, concluded that she had not breached the Ministerial Code but recommended that the prime minister reconsider her responsibilities. “I wasn’t prepared to be a distraction to the government,” Siddiq later said when announcing her decision to step down.
Voices from the courtroom and the kitchen table
When courts operate in this cross-border way, they become story-makers as much as adjudicators. That’s why the reactions are so varied—and raw.
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“Justice must be seen to be done,” said one retired judge in Dhaka who asked not to be named. “But due process must also be beyond reproach. Trials in absentia raise legitimate questions.”
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“It’s painful to watch,” said Amina Begum, 34, who sells samosas near the courthouse. “We remember when big names were untouchable. People want answers.”
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“A British MP shouldn’t be silenced in this way,” said a London campaigner for diaspora rights. “At the same time, if there are legitimate allegations, they shouldn’t be waved away because of geography.”
What the data tell us
Some context: Bangladesh is home to roughly 170 million people, one of the world’s most densely populated nations, whose politics have long revolved around fierce rivalries within a small set of elite families. In the United Kingdom, the Bangladeshi diaspora is concentrated in cities like London, with a community numbering around half a million people—voters, business owners, and activists who often carry the political baggage of two homelands.
The interplay between domestic courts and international reputations isn’t unique to Bangladesh and the UK. Around the world, countries increasingly use legal tools as instruments of political contestation. Awareness of this trend matters because it reshapes how we think about citizenship, accountability, and mobility in a globalized era.
Where does that leave us?
So what should we make of this tangled story? First: reporting the verdict is not the same as endorsing it. Courts have handed down sentences; defendants and supporters maintain their innocence. Second: the case exposes a gap in international mechanisms for addressing allegations that span borders while safeguarding fair process.
Legal scholars point to three hard truths:
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Trials in absentia complicate appeals and the perception of due process.
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Political context—especially in countries with polarized elites—can influence both prosecution and public reception.
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For diaspora politicians, residence in another country does not insulate them from legal or reputational fallout back home.
Questions worth asking
As you read this from whatever city you call home, consider the following: How should democracies reconcile the need for accountability with the imperatives of fair trial standards? What responsibilities do politicians who straddle two countries owe to the constituents in each place? And how, in an age of instant news, do verdicts passed in one court shape the political life of another nation?
The answers won’t be simple. They will involve law, diplomacy, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable realities about power—and about how power can be wielded across oceans.
For Tulip Siddiq, the sentences mean a sustained public debate about her ties, her past, and her future—and for the many communities watching from both Dhaka and London, a reminder that in the global village, local politics are never just local.
“I want people to know who I am,” a friend says of Siddiq in London. “Not only headlines.”
That wish—to be known beyond the news cycle—might be the most human plea in all of this. It asks us to look more closely, listen more patiently, and demand that the mechanisms we trust to deliver justice do so with clarity, fairness, and an eye toward the greater good.
