Irish family members of Ryan Cornelius, a British businessman jailed for fraud in the United Arab Emirates, whose imprisonment has been labelled unfair by the United Nations, have sought to enlist the help of MEPs and EU officials in an effort to have him released.
Heather Cornelius and Chris Pagett, respectively Ryan’s wife and brother-in-law, visited the European Parliament in Brussels to ask MEPs to help put pressure on the UAE to release him.
Since Heather has Irish roots and holds an Irish passport, they feel the EU is their only avenue left to help secure Cornelius' release.
Who is Ryan Cornelius?
Cornelius is a property developer who was jailed over a $501 million (€441.2m) bank loan from the Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) that he and another British businessman were using to fund investment programmes in the Gulf.
DIB subsequently reset the loan, claiming that it was not being used for the intended purposes and that fake receipts were being provided to cover the expenditure. A settlement was reached under which new repayment terms were set, and Cornelius’ property was put up as collateral.
He was nevertheless detained for 10 years in 2008 as part of an alleged bank fraud case, with his detention extended by 20 years in 2018 unless the $430 million debt (€378.4m) was settled.
A United Nations working group on arbitrary detention ruled in 2022 that Cornelius’ trial was unfair and his imprisonment “arbitrary”, contravening eight separate articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
His case has also been taken up by the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, the group founded by Bill Browder, who accompanied his family members to Brussels, and said Cornelius is the longest wrongfully imprisoned British citizen abroad.
Seventeen years in prison
In an interview with Euronews, the brother-in-law of Ryan Cornelius described his life behind bars in Dubai. A former government official, Chris Pagett said Ryan's health was deteriorating, but that he has remained mentally strong due to frequent phone calls with Heather his wife and their three children.
"The most important thing is to talk to Heather. He talks to her once a day," Pagett said, adding that it is a “gross abuse of process” that the British government has not done more to fight for Cornelius’ release.
"Ryan is able to use a public call box in the prison, so he spends most of his day in prison in a queue for the public call boxes," Pagett explained.
"Ryan's case was basically an irritant, an obstacle in the way of their desire for, you know, close commercial relations with the UAE," he added.
Asked to comment by Euronews, the British government said that Foreign Secretary David Lammy had brought his case up with the UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan on 7 December 2024.
Back in January, Hamish Falconer, the British under-secretary of state, said the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was providing Cornelius with consular assistance and took "any reports of human rights violations, including coercion and poor prison conditions very seriously".
Bring Ryan Cornelius home
But Heather Cornelius has turned to Brussels in efforts to see her husband released, and told Euronews how hard daily life has been for her husband.
"He hardly ever gets outside, maybe twice a month outside into fresh air,” she said.
"The rest of the time you are in a concrete building with steel chairs attached to the floor, a steel bed, lit up 24 hours," Heather Cornelius explained.
Irish MEPs Barry Andrews from Renew Europe and Seán Kelly from the European People's Party met with Heather Cornelius and Pagett in the European Parliament. They hope to put Ryan Cornelius' case on the European Parliament agenda with a resolution so they can bring it to the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
"The UN Human Rights Council have very clearly said that this is an injustice, and he should never been locked up in the first place, never mind have his detention extended," Barry Andrews told Euronews, adding that in Dubai, rules state that anyone over 70 should be released in any case.
"There's something extraordinarily punitive about this ongoing detention and Ryan has significant medical needs that are not being met," Andrews said.
"We are going to do everything we can to shed light on the case and hopefully to have Ryan released as soon as possible," he concluded.
