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One day in May 2008, a British businessman called Ryan Cornelius landed in Dubai to change planes on his way to his home in Bahrain.

But at Dubai airport he was approached by four men in civilian clothes, who arrested him and drove him away in an unmarked car.

After languishing in jail without trial for three years, Ryan – whose business had taken out a large loan from a Dubai-based bank – was convicted of ‘theft from a state body’ in what has been widely condemned as an utterly flawed process and sentenced to ten years in the dismal conditions of an Emirati jail.

Just before he was due to walk free in 2018, the authorities claimed that he had ‘failed to repay the creditor’ and monstrously added another 20 years to his sentence.

Quite apart from the rights and wrongs of Ryan’s particular case, international law is clear: you cannot jail a man to collect a civil debt. This is not a grey area. It is a plain injustice.

And this week the United Nations did something successive British governments have failed to do: It stood up for a British citizen.

‘We call on the Emirati Government to release Mr Cornelius without delay,’ the experts from the Office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights thundered in a strongly worded statement. ‘He completed his original prison sentence in 2018. Yet he remains behind bars following a 20-year extension imposed in proceedings marred by serious judicial irregularities.’

The UN warned that, if he is not freed soon, his detention will become a death sentence. Those are their words, not mine, but given that Ryan is now 72, they could not be more prescient.

British businessman Ryan Cornelius was sentenced to ten years in jail for 'theft from a state body' - then, in 2018, the authorities cruelly added another 20 years to his sentence

Sir William Browder says Ryan is 'yet another victim of a draconian and corrupt Middle Eastern legal system'

And let’s be clear, Ryan is not some dodgy wheeler-dealer but a much-loved family man and respected property developer who built up a successful construction company over two decades in Saudi Arabia before selling it and moving to Bahrain in the late 1990s.

The bitter truth is that he is yet another victim of a draconian and corrupt Middle Eastern legal system in which the courts are all too often used to pursue vendettas, settle scores or raid assets. His only consolation is the daily phone calls he has with his wife of 41 years, Heather.

As the founder of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, which seeks to impose visa bans and asset freezes on human rights abusers, I became involved in the efforts to free Ryan four years ago.

His big mistake was to fall foul of powerful interests in Dubai after procuring a prime plot of 480 acres, with a view to creating an equestrian centre and polo club called The Plantation, which would include a hotel, villas, five international-standard polo pitches and stabling for up to 800 horses.

It was an ambitious project and he procured a loan of $500million (£376million) from the Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) to fund its development. Unfortunately for Ryan, The Plantation soon caught the eye of covetous members of the Dubai establishment and, at the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis, they seized their chance.

Despite the fact that he had scrupulously kept up all his loan repayments, he was obliged to negotiate a restructuring agreement with the DIB.

It demanded that Ryan pledge all his business and personal assets as security in exchange for a three-year loan repayment schedule and, despite the fact that The Plantation was independently valued at over $1billion – more than twice the amount of DIB’s outstanding loan – he was arbitrarily arrested, as we have seen, at Dubai airport.

He went on to spend seven weeks in solitary confinement during which time he was served a notice of foreclosure, even though he was $10million ahead of the agreed repayment schedule at the time.

Ryan procured a prime plot of 480 acres, with a view to creating an equestrian centre and polo club called The Plantation

Ryan is a much-loved family man and respected property developer, not some dodgy wheeler-dealer

While he was then transferred from solitary confinement to a shared prison cell, his bankers spent the following two years systematically driving him into bankruptcy.

At his subsequent trial, the DIB argued that The Plantation was ‘worthless’. This was a statement so obviously false that the fact it was accepted by the court tells you everything you need to know about the corruption endemic in Dubai’s so-called legal system.

And you don’t have to take my word for it. In 2024, The Plantation, by now renamed The Acres and under the ultimate control of the all-powerful ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, was valued at $3billion.

Strip away the paperwork and the real reason Ryan remains in that cell is plain: Greed.

Ryan, a blameless British man, built a business, his accusers wanted it, so they threw him in prison and took it.

Then they kept him there. Locked in a jail cell, he cannot stand in a courtroom and demand his assets back.

Every year behind bars is another year they keep and profit from what was his.

The longer Ryan is held behind bars, the greater the risk that greed prevails and no one is ever held to account.

It is a measure of the ordeal Ryan has suffered that the youngest of his three children, who was six when he was jailed, is now 25.

But his imprisonment has taken a terrible physical toll as well. In his overcrowded cell, he survives on a totally inadequate diet and is given little chance to exercise.

Not surprisingly his health is failing. Ryan has high cholesterol and hypertension. He has also had Covid twice and a bout of tuberculosis, which went untreated for 18 months.

In response, his captors can point to a document Ryan signed confirming his ‘human rights’ were being respected.

But I know for a fact that it was signed under pressure, and only serves as yet another example of the oppressive nature of the regime we are dealing with.

It is bad enough that a British passport holder is being treated in this way but nothing short of disgraceful that government after government has looked the other way.

No one was more in dereliction of duty than the man who ran this country until a few weeks ago.

Sir Keir Starmer loved to trumpet his career as a human rights lawyer but, when confronted by the plight of a fellow countryman who has not only been unjustly jailed but subjected to treatment – solitary confinement – that the UN says amounts to torture, he took no meaningful action.

Too often, ministers appear to weigh Emirati investment in the City of London more heavily than the freedom of British citizens.

They do not want to upset a wealthy partner. So they stay quiet and hope the problem goes away.

Now, of course, we have a new Prime Minister. Andy Burnham pledged to ‘bring back hope’ when he walked into No10. But hope is not enough: What is required is political will.

First, Mr Burnham should call publicly for Ryan Cornelius to be released. Not only in a private diplomatic note but out loud, in plain language. The same language as that used by the UN, so the Emiratis have no choice but to hear it.

Second, if they don’t do anything, he must create consequences. Our new PM should use Britain’s Magnitsky sanctions legislation against the individuals who conspired to jail Ryan and steal his property.

Many others have already done their bit. The Irish government, to its immense credit, has worked to help Ryan because his wife Heather holds an Irish passport.

The European Parliament even passed a resolution demanding his release. One hundred and forty-six British parliamentarians signed an open letter calling for the same thing.

Now it is time for Mr Burnham himself to stand up, show some courage – and do the right thing.

Sir William Browder is the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and founder of the Magnitsky Human Rights Awards.