The dark side of Dubai: Property developer Ryan Cornelius loved his life in the Gulf - until he was arrested in 2008 and sent to prison for 30 years. Now his wife tells their shocking story...

When Heather Cornelius first learned that her husband Ryan had been arrested in Dubai, initially charged with money-laundering after the state bank claimed he had misused a multimillion-dollar loan, she was, she says, ‘a complete wreck, crying all the time’. I promised the children every year that, this Christmas, we’d have Dad home – and I always believed it.’ Dubai Marina Heather never imagined that, more than 16 years later, Ryan would still be in prison, the money-laundering charges long dropped, but now serving 20 more years for debt – a criminal matter in Dubai – with a possible release date of 2038. ‘Now the biggest fear that keeps me awake at night is that he’s going to die in prison.’ Ryan Cornelius was arrested at the height of the 2008 financial crash. Browder called Cornelius’s fate ‘a trumped-up case … a shakedown to seize his business’.Then, last month, Tim Roca, Labour MP for Macclesfield, tabled a debate on Ryan’s detention in the House of Commons.