Pressure mounts on Labour Government to name for launch of two British businessmen ‘forgotten’ for 17 years in a UAE jail
Pressure is mounting on the Labour Government to call for the release of two British businessmen ‘forgotten’ for 17 years in a UAE jail.
Two leading human rights lawyers have written to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper calling on her to personally intervene in the cases of Ryan Cornelius, 71, and Charles Ridley 66, who have been languishing in a Dubai prison since 2008.
The pair were convicted of fraud concerning the alleged misuse of a $501m (£370m) loan provided by the Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB).
In their letter, Rhys Davies KC and Ben Keith KC say the ‘unlawful’ detention of the two Britons after their conviction in a ‘kangaroo court’, ‘is likely to continue unless the United Kingdom Government takes action’.
Before their arrest, the two men had agreed to a settlement scheme, in which they had begun to pay back the money before they were detained and convicted.
Rhys Davies told the Mail on Sunday that the pair’s plight – which has seen both men since retroactively sentenced to another 20 years, under a law introduced after their original conviction – is ‘totally antithetical to the rule of law – a total stitch up’.
He added: ‘This is a clear case of injustice, and these Brits need to have their lives given back to them. The UK government needs to act.’
Cornelius’s brother-in-law, Chris Pagett OBE, an ex-foreign office official, described the pair’s case ‘as a source of acute embarrassment to the Foreign Office: a jarring note in their pursuit of close commercial ties with the UAE.’
Ryan Cornelius, 71, has been languishing in a prison in the UAE for the past 17 years
Charles Ridley 66, was also convicted of fraud concerning the alleged misuse of a $501m (£370m) loan provided by the Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB)
The detention of both Britons has been ruled unlawful by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
The DIB has since seized the pair’s assets in Dubai, including The Plantation property development, which Pagett says is now worth seven times as much as the sum originally owed.
Pagett said on Friday: ‘The UN issued a judgement in April 2022 that Ryan Cornelius had been unjustly imprisoned. The absence of any effective response from the British government is a mark of shame. That shame has now been doubled, with the UN making the same judgement last month on Ridley’s case.’
Cornelius and Ridley have accused the DIB, the world’s oldest Islamic bank, of seeking to ‘punish’ them with decades more years behind bars despite having completed their original sentence and being ‘close to destitute’.
Cornelius’s wife Heather, is now homeless and lives for different periods with various family members.
A letter by 146 British MPs, urging clemency has been sent to the UAE, in the hope that they could be released on 2 December – a date in the UAE calendar when pardons can occur.
But Pagett says the mood among his family is ‘very dark’. He notes that nine appeals for clemency from junior foreign office ministers have already been ignored by the UAE. Hence, the calls from him and the imprisoned men’s lawyers for Cooper to intervene for the pair’s release.
An FCDO spokesperson said: ‘The UK government continues to provide support to Mr Cornelius and Mr Ridley. We are in contact with their families and legal representatives, and we continue to raise their cases with the UAE authorities.’
