British MP and Sheikh Hasina's niece Tulip Siddiq holds Bangladeshi citizenship, despite long-standing contentions she does not, Mohammad Sultan Mahmud, public prosecutor for Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission, told the Financial Times.
He disclosed the information on the sidelines of the court proceedings this week.
Tulip was charged with using her influence as the niece of the despotic former PM to secure a plot of land for her mother, brother and sister in Dhaka's Purbachal, a controversy that forced her to resign treasury minister earlier this year.
The prosecutor said the British MP for Hampstead and Highgate has held a Bangladeshi passport and identity card as an adult.
She has also been registered to vote in the country.
"Her address, multiple passports, and her name in the voter registry — all of these have been found. We will submit them in due course," he told FT.
Several other Bangladeshi government departments or bodies confirmed they had copies of such documents.
A spokesperson for Siddiq's lawyers Stephenson Harwood denied the documents existed, and suggested they were fabrications. "Tulip has never had a Bangladesh national identity card or voter ID and has not held a passport since she was a child."
What does Tulip say?
On several occasions, Siddiq has tried to claim she has maintained no ties to her motherland.
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In a letter seeking a meeting with Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus a week before he visited London in June, Tulip said: "I am a UK citizen, born in London and representing the people of Hampstead and Highgate in parliament for the last decade. I have no property nor any business interests whatsoever in Bangladesh. The country is dear to my heart but it is not the country where I was born, live in or have built my career in."
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In late November 2017, Tulip had an angry outburst at a journalist after being asked a question about Ahmad bin Quasem, a British-trained barrister who fell prey to enforced disappearance by the state , saying: "Be very careful. I'm not Bangladeshi and the person you are talking about, I have no idea about their case. That is the end of my statement."
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During the same outburst, she remarked: "Are you calling me Bangladeshi, because I'm British . . . I am not Bangladeshi."
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In June 2015, after winning a nomination as an MP, Tulip, crediting local Awami League activists, told an AL rally in London that was attended by Hasina: "I have to go to Sylhet! Had it not been for your help, I would never have been able to stand here as a British MP."
According to UK Parliament guidelines, a British citizen with dual nationality can register to vote and qualify to stand in UK parliamentary, local and police and crime commissioners (PCC) elections.
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