Family of British grandfather, 72, pleads for release from Dubai prison after 18-year "shakedown"

As well as taking all his properties, the bank seized the Plantation development Ryan was working on, which is now called the Acres and would be worth more than $3billion on the basis of advertised villa prices.

That valuation after the land has been developed is more than double the amount of the businessman's outstanding restructured loan from the DIB, News.Az reports, citing DailyMail.

For Browder, there’s clearly ‘somebody senior in the Dubai government that doesn't want any questions asked about how they got this land. And obviously, they got this land because they seized all of his assets and they threw him in prison’.

‘There’s $3billion of future revenue that could be jeopardised if all of a sudden Ryan brought into question what happened,’ he added, hence the authorities landing him with a ‘sentence that would be longer than a sentence they would give a murderer’.

He compared Ryan’s case to raider attacks in Russia – where corrupt officials weaponise the judiciary ‘as a way of transferring lucrative properties from a person who owned them, to the person who has control of the law enforcement and detention system’.

That’s why he warns wealthy foreigners against resettling in the UAE to launch their property empires, because the risk could be their life.

‘Whenever you go to a country that doesn't have a real rule of law, and you're in business with people and somebody is due to make a lot of money, there's a big incentive to misuse the legal system to reallocate, or take away, all the money that one person's going to make towards the person who has the local connections or the ability to arrest that person.

‘I think that Dubai is a place that's un-investable for that reason,’ he says, calling Cornelius’s fate ‘a trumped-up case… a shakedown to seize his business’.

But Ryan isn't at all interested in taking the UAE authorities to court, his family says – emphasising that all he's focused on is being able to spend the last years of his life with his loved ones.

The fact that he is about to spend his 72nd birthday in jail is in itself in contravention of the UAE constitution – which stipulates that prisoners should not be held beyond the age of 70.

While Ryan hasn't been present in the flesh for so many of his children's milestones, his daily calls with Heather ensure he doesn't miss a beat of their lives.

'They all have such a lot of Ryan's character,' she says. 'They all have a great sense of humour, and they all have strong beliefs in things, and they're loyal. They're really, really loyal. They're kind, they love to have fun.

'Those are the things I fell in love with Ryan about.' 

Josh takes after his father in that he's a talented rugby player, and Heather makes sure to deliver her husband a running commentary on all his games from the touchline – allowing Ryan to take part in his child's life from the prison phone. 

'There's not a single thing that any of us do that we don't tell Ryan about. I am relating life to him every day, telling him exactly how the children react to things, what they say, what fun they have, what they worry about,' Heather says.

But still, there's no escaping the gaping hole in all of their lives. 

'When it's Christmas and birthdays, we all pretend to be happy. But there's always this huge missing part. 

'We all just really desperately want Ryan home, and it's the British Foreign Office which needs to really step in and help, because they are the ones preventing him from coming out of jail.'

A spokesperson for the UAE government has previously said that all due processes were followed during Ryan's trial and that his sentence was lawfully extended in line with UAE law. They added that all prisoners receive medical care as required.

'The UAE judicial system is independent and equitable, and guarantees the mandatory presence of a translator at all stages, the right to seek a lawyer at all stages, the provision of a lawyer at the state’s expense if the defendant cannot appoint legal counsel, and the right to appeal,' they said.

News.Az 

By Leyla Şirinova