A woman whose husband has been detained in Dubai for 17 years met with Irish politicians on Thursday to garner support for his case.
Ryan Cornelius, 71, was detained for 10 years in 2008 as part of a bank fraud case, with his detention extended by 20 years in 2018.
A UN working group has found he is subject to arbitrary imprisonment.
His wife Heather Cornelius, who is an Irish citizen, met with TDs and Senators at Leinster House in Dublin on Thursday to raise awareness of his case.
Mrs Cornelius said her husband has said the Irish embassy in Dubai are “way more proactive with prisoners than anybody else”.
“They really are fantastic. We would just like to try and get some more people backing us and supporting us,” she told PA ahead of the meetings.
Mrs Cornelius, her brother-in-law Chris Pagett, and human rights campaigner Sir Bill Browder, were due to meet with Labour leader Ivana Bacik, Social Democrats TD Sinead Gibney, and Independent senators Aubrey McCarthy and Gerard Craughwell.
They are also expected to meet with an official from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Mrs Cornelius said she has tried to campaign with the British government to push for her husband’s release but has received “very little back”.
“It’s very much to try and increase our campaign. The years are running out.
“I’d like to get Ryan home, and I am an Irish citizen, and I feel that the more people that I can bring my story and perhaps get a little bit more help.”
Mrs Cornelius’ Irish mother met her father in Co Down and they married before moving to Zambia, where she was born.
She then went to Coleraine High School and Jordanstown university in Northern Ireland, now known as Ulster University.
She said that of the 40 years she and her husband have been married, he has spent 17 years in prison.
“That’s the most devastating thing. It has been all the way along, but now it sits even heavier on both our shoulders that he’s lost all that time with his family, and he’ll never get that back. But we do hope that we’ll get some time together, a few years (where) we could be happy.”
She said that her youngest child was six-years-old when her husband was arrested, and is now 23.
“It’s completely devastated our family.”
She said her husband has high blood pressure, several skin conditions, has contracted TB while in jail and has had Covid-19 several times.
“There are no easy things about being in jail in the Middle East.
“We talk every day on the phone, and we hold on to that hope.”
Chris Pagett, who is married to Heather’s sister, said he has been part of efforts to push the British government to help secure Mr Cornelius’s release.
“This has been a cross we’ve all had to bear. We always live with hope there’ll be a breakthrough, but even if there is tomorrow, it’s 17 years we’ll never get back,” he said.
Mr Pagett said that Ireland and the EU “represents really one of our main hopes”.
As a former British diplomat, Mr Pagett said the case highlights “a chronic failure to protect your citizens abroad from injustice”.
“I think eventually a majority of British people will become more concerned about it,” he said.
“This will become a political issue, because at the moment, it’s isolated cases here and there.
“Certainly, the issue is likely in the world that we are now living in to become much more of an issue.”
Sir Bill Browder said the British government has “basically been totally inactive” and that “anything is better than nothing”.
“Ryan is a British citizen, but the British government has pretty much left him to hang out and dry.
“Given that there’s a connection to Ireland, we thought that perhaps the Irish would care more about one of theirs than the British do about theirs.
“We’re going to Brussels in a few weeks to meet people in the European Parliament – and particularly the Irish members of the European Parliament – and we’re here in Dublin to meet with the Irish parliament, and we’re trying to find any way to get him out.
“This man should not have been in prison at all, but to serve 17 years and to have his entire life ruined over this thing, it’s just unfathomable.”
