Wife of Brit fears he will die in Dubai prison after 20 years added to jail term
The wife of a British businessman fears he will die in a Dubai prison after authorities extended his jail sentence by 20 years.
Heather Cornelius told of her despair over the plight of her 64-year-old husband and accused the British Government of failing to help to get him out. She said Ryan Cornelius will struggle to survive for another two decades in a Gulf prison.
Mr Cornelius should be free, having served his original ten-year sentence handed down for a $500 million fraud in 2009. But instead he was taken from jail and dragged back to court earlier this year and ordered to serve a further 20 years unless he and his co-conspirators settled a $430 million debt.
Mr Cornelius, a father-of-three who suffers from high blood pressure and a skin condition, will be 84 before next eligible for release under the draconian rules.
Mrs Cornelius, 59, speaking for the first time, told The Telegraph: “I have never wanted to go public because you always think this nightmare is going to end. But when they sentenced him to another 20 years you feel you have to do something about this injustice.
“He has been given a death sentence. He won’t survive 20 years in there.”
Mrs Cornelius, whose home in London has been repossessed, has pleaded with the Foreign office to raise the case in the wake of the release of Matthew Hedges, who had been jailed for life for spying.
Mrs Cornelius has repeatedly asked for Foreign Office help in securing clemency for her husband but complains her please have been ignored. She now wants the Government to secure the same deal it obtained for Mr Hedges, who was released earlier this month, after spending six months in solitary confinement.
Cornelius and his fellow British inmate, Charles Ridley, have been caught up in Dubai’s Law 37, which was introduced to extend prison sentences for convicts who do not return the proceeds of fraud against the government. The law was introduced after they were first arrested in 2008.
The fraud related to a $500 million loan obtained from the Dubai Islamic Bank. At the time the men were jailed, it sent shock waves through the expatriate communities in the Gulf.
Lord Timothy Clement-Jones, a Liberal democrat peer who has taken up Cornelius’ case, wrote in a letter earlier this month to Alistair Burt, the minister of state for the Middle East: “We appear to be in danger of defaulting to a posture of keeping silent when our citizens’ human rights are abused in the hope that this will buy us a favourable commercial relationship,” he wrote in a letter earlier this month to Alistair Burt, the minister of state for the Middle East.
