Dubai bank is behind Briton's 30-year jail term, family claims

A Dubai bank is instrumental in the long-running detention of a 71-year-old British businessman, Ryan Cornelius, who is serving a 30-year sentence that will keep him in jail until he is 84, his brother-in-law claims.

- Patrick Wintour

Recent accounts show the Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB), which claims to be a trailblazer in championing Islamic values in banking, is on course to make more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in profit this year.

Cornelius was detained in 2008, and convicted with three others of defrauding the bank in 2011. He has already served 17 years but in 2018 his sentence was extended at the request of the bank for a further 20 years, according to information given to a UN working party on arbitrary detention, meaning he will not be freed until 2038, when he will be 84.

He was accused of failing to keep up payments to the bank over a loan to fund a business deal, a charge he denies, and was required by a Dubai court to pay $432m.

DIB brought proceedings to recover the loan using a law that extends prison sentences for convicts who fail to return proceeds of fraud.

His wife, Heather, is in effect homeless and Cornelius has no means of raising the sums required to secure his release.