Ryan O'Grady, pictured in a handout photo, was arrested last November in Dubai.Supplied
A veteran Canadian banker is in prison in the United Arab Emirates, fighting a South Sudanese extradition request that he says would amount to a death sentence.
Ryan O’Grady, 47, is the former chief executive officer of Kush Bank, a financial institution in South Sudan, and a long-time development consultant in the charitable and non-profit sector. He says he was hit with a breach-of-trust charge in retribution after he blew the whistle on multimillion-dollar corruption schemes at the bank.
Mr. O’Grady, who was arrested last November in Dubai, has been held in Al Awir central prison in the city for the past six months. After losing a court appeal last week, he believes he could be extradited at any time to South Sudan, an oil-rich but impoverished African country that became the world’s youngest country when it gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
“I’m resigned to the stark reality that never again will I see my wife and daughter,” Mr. O’Grady said in a voice message from prison this weekend, shared by his wife, Virginia, and heard by The Globe and Mail.
He says he has been ill in prison for months without any medical treatment until recently, and the prison conditions in South Sudan would be much worse if he is extradited. “I’m having to accept the real possibility of losing my life,” he said in the voice message.
“The conditions here are harsh. It took five-and-a-half months to be examined by a doctor and finally to receive medicine. This process has cost me my savings, my income, my reputation, the safety and stability of my family, my freedom, and now in all probability my life.”
Mr. O’Grady was the CEO of Kush Bank from 2022 to 2023. He says the bank’s board of directors had asked him to clean up its finances, which led to the resignation of a previous executive and the cancellation of a management buyout of the bank.
When he faced a pressure campaign and death threats, he left the bank and moved to Dubai in 2023. In a statement after his resignation, he said he had increased the bank’s client base by 68 per cent and boosted its revenue and profits during his tenure.
Mr. O’Grady says he was subjected to a 19-month investigation by Interpol after South Sudan sent a notice to the international police agency. Despite the investigation, no evidence was provided against him in the Dubai court proceedings, and he was not permitted to appear in court, he says.
Any court process against him in South Sudan will be a sham, and he is likely to be tortured, he says.
The court rulings in Dubai do not disclose any details of South Sudan’s accusations against him, except to say that the charge is breach of trust. Senior officials in South Sudan’s foreign ministry and information ministry did not respond to queries from The Globe on Monday.
A little-known website, Kenya Insights, published reports last year alleging “shady” and “opaque” financial dealings by Mr. O’Grady in the South Sudan oil sector. It gave few details, largely citing allegations by a group, South Sudan Truth Defenders, which appears to have no online presence.
Mr. O’Grady says the allegations are part of a smear campaign against him after he tried to clean up corruption at Kush Bank and improve its transparency and integrity.
“When you do that, you come head-to-head with the bad actors who profit in the dark corners and shady deals,” he said in the voice message. “Those of us who’ve tried to shed light on that darkness and build something good for the people of South Sudan – we’re losing badly.”
Nicholas Coghlan, a former Canadian ambassador to South Sudan, says Mr. O’Grady appears to be facing a “major miscarriage of justice.” South Sudan’s government is widely reported to one of the most corrupt in the world, and its prisons are badly overcrowded, with appalling conditions and no health care provisions, he told The Globe.
The Canadian government should mobilize its top officials to help Mr. O’Grady fight the extradition request, Mr. Coghlan said.
Renelle Arsenault, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, said the department was aware of the arrest of a Canadian citizen in the UAE and was providing consular assistance. Because of privacy considerations, the department cannot comment on the case or any foreign legal proceedings, she told The Globe in response to e-mailed questions.
Ruth Marrocco, an assistant to Conservative MP Philip Lawrence, said the Canadian consulate in Dubai has told the MP that Canada is formally opposing Mr. O’Grady’s extradition to South Sudan and has repeatedly raised concerns about “due process, fair trial guarantees, and the risk of mistreatment.”
Ms. Marrocco quoted the comments from the Canadian consulate in an e-mail that she sent on Friday to a journalist at Today’s Northumberland, a news site in Mr. O’Grady’s hometown of Cobourg, Ont.