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Dhaka police raided the family home of a man jailed for eight years under former Bangladesh ruler Sheikh Hasina’s regime after British journalists asked about the plight of her niece, British city minister Tulip Siddique.
Mir Ahmed bin Qussim told the Financial Times that security personnel had told his wife to “lay low” and stop media coverage, hours before Channel 4 news aired footage of reporters questioning Siddique.
In the year “Tulip made it very clear that she was in this case somewhere in the Shaikh dynasty,” said Kusem, who was held without trial in a secret prison in Bangladesh between 2016 and 2024. “So I’m sure that’s what caused this dumb reaction. From the administration.
Channel 4 news reporters approached Siddique in London on the morning of Saturday, November 25, 2017, and suggested to Quasem, a Bangladeshi national, that “you can make a big difference with just one phone call.”
Footage of the confrontation – with Siddiq warning reporters that she was a Bangladeshi politician, “be very careful what you say I am a British MP” – was broadcast three days later on the evening of November 28.
Hours before the airport, security personnel, including members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a unit of the Bangladeshi police accused of human rights abuses, surrounded the family’s home, Kusem said.
About a dozen armed men entered the house, Kusem said, asking for details of his wife’s overseas contacts. He added: “It looks like they are hunting a terrorist.”
Kusem was arrested for the first time in the year In 2016, he was serving in the legal team of his father, the leader of the Bangladesh Islamic Party. Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League government were released from jail on August 6 last year, less than 24 hours after their arrest. He was dismissed from office.
Trained as a lawyer in Britain, he was one of hundreds held in the regime’s notorious “glass house” prison, where inmates say they haven’t seen anyone else for years. Describing his imprisonment as “worse than death,” Kusem said he was handcuffed and denied access to sunlight.
Qassem’s UK-based lawyer, Michael Pollock, said he believed the raid was an attempt by the Qassem family to pressure Channel 4 News from airing the film.
“Here’s a member of parliament being asked about something right and that creates a threat from a security agency known for disappearing and torturing and killing people,” Pollock said.
FT revealed Last week, Siddique revealed that she has a property in London that she bought free of charge from a developer linked to the Awami League.
The Labor MP for Hampstead and Highgate has also now lived in properties linked to people in the party, including her home in East Finchley.
Siddiqui Monday She mentioned herself. “She has done nothing wrong,” said an adviser to government ministerial standards on her property holdings.
The International Criminal Court of Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for Sheikh Hasina and 11 of her senior officials for forced disappearance.
Siddique’s aunt was directly involved in the enforced disappearance of thousands of people, according to a preliminary report released last month by a new commission of inquiry set up by Bangladesh’s transitional government.
Siddique, who is responsible for fighting illicit finance in the UK, was named in an investigation by the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission last month.
The probe comes after Sheikh Hasina’s political rivals, including Siddique, accused her of cutting off a Russian-backed nuclear power project.
Sheikh Hasina’s family has also been accused of embezzling money from the Bangladeshi banking system. They have denied these claims.
Sajib Wazed, an adviser to Sheikh Hasina, told Reuters last month: “It is not possible to extract billions from a $10 billion project (nuclear deal). We also have no overseas accounts. I have been living in America for 30 years, my aunt and cousins ​​have been living in England for the same amount of time. Obviously we have accounts here, but none of us have ever seen that kind of money.
In the year RAB, which was sanctioned by the US in 2021 for its role in extrajudicial killings and disappearances, came under new leadership after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government. A new law is being drafted to regulate the procedure.
Kusem, who said that the time spent in prison has left her “physically weak and psychologically damaged”, asked British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to “seriously consider whether she (Sidiq) is fit for the role”.
Siddique apologized for the Channel 4 News report on his behavior towards one of the program’s journalists.
The FT has contacted Siddiq and the Labor Party for comment. Siddiq did not respond to inquiries and Labor declined to comment.
Siddiqui’s partner, Quseem, was neither part of it nor a British citizen, but she wrote to the Foreign Office in December 2017 as an MP for the constituency in accordance with “proper protocol” after she was asked by constituents.
