The wife of a British businessman has called on Andy Burnham for help after several pleas sent to his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer went unanswered amid his family's fears that the 72-year-old may die behind bars in Dubai.
Ryan Cornelius has spent nearly two decades jailed in Dubai's central prison in the Al Awir desert – a world away from the glittering metropolis shown by celebrities and influencers of the United Arab Emirates on social media.
The forbidding prison, famously dubbed Dubai's Alcatraz, has been repeatedly condemned by human rights groups as a grim, high-security 'hell-hole' where inmates face harsh conditions and overcrowding.
Here, Mr Cornelius has been locked away in a cell the size of a shipping container, which he shares with six other inmates, despite demands from the United Nations that he be released, as it accused the UAE of 'serious judicial irregularities'.
In 2008, he was arrested and accused of defrauding the Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) after taking out a $500million bank loan, which he and another Brit were using to fund investment programmes in the Gulf state. He vehemently denies the charges.
