British politicians and the family of jailed businessman Ryan Cornelius, imprisoned in a Dubai jail for the last 16 years, are pleading with Sir Keir Starmer to fight for the property developer’s freedom as he visits the United Arab Emirates for trade talks.
The father-of-three, 70, has spent his children’s lives languishing in prison over an alleged £370m fraud. The UAE says he illegally obtained a loan from the government-affiliated Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) by bribing staff members, but the United Nations says the charge of fraud is unjust. Mr Cornelius accuses the DIB, which is chaired by a senior, non-royal government official, of being his “effective jailers”.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative Party leader, says the UAE imprisoned Mr Cornelius “deliberately to take possession of his properties” financed by the loan. Some of that property, Mr Cornelius has alleged in a letter to Sir Keir this week – dictated to his brother-in-law Chris Pagett over the prison phone in a bid to secure the help of the PM to negotiate his release – is “now being marketed as Dubai’s latest prestige residential development, worth many times the value of their loan”.
In a statement issued to The Telegraph, the UAE claims Mr Cornelius was convicted following a “fair trial in which all due processes were followed”, and that his sentence was extended after he failed to repay the creditor.
Mr Pagett describes the UAE’s repeated justifications for keeping the businessman in prison as “utter, cynical, bare-faced lies”.
Despite the UAE constitution stating that prisoners should be released when they turn 70, Mr Cornelius wrote in his letter to Sir Keir that his sentence has been tripled, upon request by the DIB. He is now scheduled for release in 2038, when he will be 84.
Already the longest-held British victim of arbitrary detention, his family say he is suffering from the cumulative health effects of tuberculosis, Covid and high blood pressure.
“Ryan has come to realise that the nightmare may never end,” Mr Pagett told The Independent. “The time he has lost can’t be recovered. His health has deteriorated, and his children have grown up without him. He has been stripped of everything he ever possessed.”
During periods of Mr Cornelius’s imprisonment he has been kept in solitary confinement. He has spent most days queuing up to make the one call a day afforded to him to speak to his family. His only chance to be on the touchline for his 22-year-old youngest son Josh’s rugby games have come through Mr Cornelius’ wife, Heather, narrating the game over the phone. He has never seen his son play in person: Josh was just six when Mr Cornelius was arrested.
As Sir Keir visits the UAE on Monday, Mr Cornelius and his family have made a plea to Downing Street to negotiate his release. Mr Cornelius sent a letter to Sir Keir prior to the trip asking for help as one more “desperate throw of the dice”.
After the United Nations said in 2022 they believed Mr Cornelius was arbitrarily detained, the British Foreign Office agreed to write a cover letter for the family’s plea for clemency from the UAE.
It took the Foreign Office eight months to consider the UN’s 13-page document and the cover letter was later written by a junior minister. The clemency appeal ultimately failed.
The Foreign Office still does not, however, officially recognise that Mr Cornelius’s detention is unjust. His supporters in parliament claim this is to avoid upsetting a nation with which the UK hopes to agree trade deals.
“The Foreign Office has this weird idea that if you don’t raise difficult cases, people will like you and they’ll do nice things for you,” says Mr Duncan Smith.
Cross-party calls for Mr Cornelius’s release from the backbenches are growing.
Earlier this week, Mr Duncan Smith staged a debate in parliament in which he called for Mr Cornelius’s release and, using parliamentary privilege, named members of the DIB he and his family believe are responsible for his detention. They include the chairman, Mohammed Ibrahim Al Shaibani, and eight directors. The Foreign Office will be handed these names by representatives of the family next week and asked to sanction them.
Responding to Mr Duncan Smith, Hamish Falconer, a foreign office minister, told the Commons that he has raised Mr Cornelius’s request for clemency with the ruler of Dubai, adding that the ministry is committed to meeting with the family for as long as the case remains ongoing. He did not comment on a request by Mr Duncan Smith to sanction members of the DIB.
The Independent has contacted the DIB for comment.
When in opposition, David Lammy, now foreign secretary, was a vocal supporter of the rights of Britons unjustly imprisoned abroad, including Mr Cornelius.
When he visited the UAE in September, however, he did not raise Mr Cornelius’s case. A statement released by the Foreign Office said Mr Lammy and his Emirati counterpart, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, discussed “building on deep historic ties to develop a forward looking partnership”, including “strengthening bilateral trade and investment ties”.
A brief note on discussing “humanitarian issues” was tacked onto the end, without elaboration.
Mr Duncan Smith, when asked why successive governments had not sanctioned UAE over the issue, said: “You know why it is? Show me the money. The [UK] government’s chasing the money.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The situation of Ryan Cornelius has been raised with the UAE and officials continue to provide consular access to Mr Cornelius and are in contact with [his family] at this time. It is a serious case; we are absolutely aware of it and UAE know we are very concerned.”
Mr Pagett said Mr Cornelius draws hope from the fact that there are people still fighting for him.
“He is not completely abandoned,” said Mr Pagett, “even though his conditions remain incredibly dehumanising.”
It’s just a shame, he added, that this support doesn’t seem to be coming from those Mr Cornelius needs the most.
