Family of Briton jailed in Dubai for 16 years pleads with PM to end 'nightmare'

Starmer urged to use UAE visit to push businessman's case

- TOM WATLING

British politicians and the family of jailed businessman Ryan Cornelius, imprisoned in a Dubai jail for the past 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.